


Infighting, Insanity, and Social Ineptitude

by najio



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), Canon-Typical Violence, Chaos, Character Death, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, POV rotates between all twelve people because I like to suffer, but also some, dammit how did I just realize that's a tag, shuffled teams, this is long and there are ups and downs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 51
Words: 294,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/najio/pseuds/najio
Summary: In which teams are shuffled,Ruby feels like a one-eyed king in a land where everyone else has two,Dove babysits three avatars of chaos and destruction,and Jaune just wants his team to stop arguing for ten consecutive minutes.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Weiss Schnee, hints of Renora
Comments: 76
Kudos: 97





	1. Initiation [1]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Quick housekeeping thing: this is the last fic I'm scooching over from FFN, and it's... long. Like, 300K long. Since I am nowhere near powerful enough to do that in one sitting, I'm going to start with the first four chapters (which all went up together when I first posted it) and then probably drop them in little clusters every few days or so.
> 
> So uh... yeah! Enjoy! :)

Everything was still. Faint birdsong served more to accentuate the silence than to break it, and warm sunlight filtered in through the canopy of brilliant green leaves high above. The air smelled rich and earthy. Ren was having trouble remembering this place was infested with Grimm.

Part of that was probably because he hadn't seen any. For all the headmaster's grave warnings, the most threatening creature he'd encountered so far had been a stray spider crawling on his pant leg. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and listening intently. Still nothing. If Nora had been anywhere nearby, he'd have heard her—she was many things, but subtle and quiet weren't among them. He trotted off into the woods, his shoes sinking into the carpet of fallen leaves and pine needles. If he kept walking he'd find her eventually, and then they'd be partners just like they always were.

Somewhere behind him and to the left, a high-pitched shriek rent the air. Ren froze, turning his head to look around. Not Nora—his frantic heartbeat slowed. He glanced guiltily back in the direction he'd been heading. Surely, his fellow hunters-in-training could handle themselves? Whoever it was had probably just been startled. But... no. He had made a promise to himself, to never again harm others through his own inaction. Ren turned and trudged off in the direction of the noise.

Not even a minute later, he heard another scream. This one had come from the opposite direction, and Ren once again had to forcibly remind himself that it _wasn't Nora._ It was a bit of a conundrum, though—who to search for? He hesitated, glancing back and forth, trying to sense any disturbance that might indicate more danger one way or another. Instead, the second voice cried out again. The first had been silent since he'd heard it—they were likely either safe, or beyond his help. Ren turned on his heel and darted into the trees. In his haste, the coil of polished dark scales half-hidden in the brush went entirely unnoticed.

The screamer, it turned out, was a young man with shoulder-length hair that was somewhere between blue and grey in color. He was not, as Ren had expected, besieged by a horde of beowolves, or maybe a larger Grimm like a Deathstalker. No, he was dangling halfway up a tree by both arms and curling his legs up, all to avoid the claws of a single Ursa. It wasn't even a particularly _large_ Ursa.

Whiffing out a breath, the Grimm stood up on its hind legs and slammed both front paws into the trunk of the tree. The branch the boy was hanging from jerked, and he screamed again as his legs swung just inches from the monster's snapping jaws. Ren let out a resigned sigh and wandered into the clearing. The Ursa turned, opened its mouth to snarl, and stumbled back onto its hindquarters when he slashed it across the face with one of his guns. It swiped at him, and he slipped under the reaching paw to bury one of the blades in the softer flesh at its armpit. He followed up with a palm strike to the underside of its neck, and after a sickening crack the beast went still.

Then, very reluctantly, he looked up. The boy in the tree was staring at him wide-eyed, still clinging to his branch. Even as Ren watched, one hand slipped and he came crashing down on his back with a yelp. Nora had been right—it would've been better to wear blindfolds until they found one another.

* * *

Dove didn't have much of a preference, when it came to his partner. He wanted someone strong, hopefully someone intelligent as well, but he didn't care _who_ it was. Even so... he had sort of wanted his first interaction with the person he'd spend the next four years with to be positive. Maybe a smile, or even just a handshake.

But, when someone careened out of the trees to his left so quickly she bowled him over, sending the pair of them rolling down the hill, the very first thing that left her mouth when her bright teal eyes locked on his was, "Oh, no!"

He felt a little bit dazed, probably from when his head had hit the ground, but he did his best to smile reassuringly. "It's alright," he said, assuming she'd been apologizing for knocking him over.

"I was supposed to find Ren!" she groaned, bouncing to her feet and looking around. "Or at least someone about to die! I know saving people is supposed to come before having a good partner, but you're fine! Why were you even screaming, if you're fine?!"

"I didn't?" Dove got up much slower than she did, pausing to rub at the back of his head. "That was someone else, in that direction." He pointed off to the southeast.

The girl slumped. Her whole body seemed to go limp with disappointment, and Dove couldn't help but be a little offended. "I'm sure we could still be on the same team as this Ren person," he tried. She perked up immediately, turning toward him with a grin that showed every single one of her teeth. Dove wasn't always great at reading people's expressions, but something about that smile made him nervous.

"You're right! We just gotta find him and his partner." Her expression darkened. "And then, we make 'em switch with me. Or _else._ "

"That's not what I—" Dove started, but she was already sprinting away. "You didn't even tell me your name!" he shouted after her.

* * *

Two Ursai, four Beowolves, and a Creep. Nearly half an hour of wandering through the forest. _Six_ separate sticker bushes that had each snagged on her coat. Not a single sign of another human being, let alone her little sister. Yang was not amused.

"Bored!" she shouted, to no one in particular. She'd been doing that on and off since the Ursai. Honestly, they'd all been launched in the same general area. How long could it take to randomly run into someone else?

A Beowolf poked its head out of a bush, and she smashed it into the ground. It yipped once and died. "Bored," she told the smoke. It was at least reassuring that she hadn't encountered any real resistance so far. If she was practically walking through the Grimm in this area, then Ruby would be too. It'd be a lot _more_ reassuring if she could actually _find_ her.

"Ruby!" Yang hollered at the top of her lungs, cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify the sound. She'd given up on trying to push her little sister out of her comfort zone somewhere around the point when the headmaster had shot them off a cliff. It was one thing to _say_ that when they were both safe in the locker room, and another thing entirely to just... look for some other partner when Ruby was probably freaking out trying to find her. She sighed, then waded through another thorn bush. The silence was starting to make her antsy—where was everyone?

 _"Ruby!"_ she shouted again.

"Yo!" another voice answered. Yang whipped her head around to the side. That wasn't Ruby—and it wasn't close, either. She worried at her lower lip, backing a step away from the unfamiliar voice. If she sprinted the other way, she could probably avoid making contact. Then she'd just need to find... no.

"Can't smother her," she muttered under her breath. Then, "Over here!"

A few minutes later, a boy emerged from the undergrowth covered with pine needles and with a mess of cobwebs stuck to one cheek. He grinned at her, then held out a hand.

"Russel," he said. She studied the silk on his face, then grinned.

"Yang. _Webs_ be friends!"

* * *

Jaune screamed as he fell, pinwheeling through the air with the ground spinning dizzyingly around him. Then he was brought suddenly and painfully to a halt, there was a loud tearing noise, and he opened his eyes to find himself hanging by his hood. He reached up and touched his neck, just to make absolutely sure that his jacket was the only thing that had just been impaled.

"Hello?" he called out. He wiggled his feet, his sneakers knocking against the trunk of the tree. The tree he was pinned to, like a butterfly on a card. It was a very tall tree, and he was now sure that at least part of what made him sick on airships was the height. _"Hello?!"_ he tried again, louder this time.

In the distance, he thought he heard someone else scream. He peered anxiously in that direction, wishing he were on the ground so he could _do_ something. Jaune reached up and tugged on the spear that was stuck through his hoodie. He was pretty sure he recognized it as Pyrrha's. It was hard not to, considering it was the same one that had pinned him to his locker just this morning.

"Pyrrha! Are you there?" Jaune kicked his feet again. Really, the least she could do after nailing him to a tree was to help him get _down._ He gave her weapon another yank. It started to shift, just a little, and his heart leaped into his throat. The ground suddenly seemed even farther away than it had been just a second ago. He stopped trying to pull out the spear.

He squirmed in place, hoping to shift position without slipping off and making a Jaune pancake on the ground. His hoodie was digging painfully into the undersides of his arms.

Far below him, he heard the sound of muffled laughter. His face burned, and he had to crane his neck to get a good look at whoever was at the foot of the tree. He didn't recognize the guy—all he could see was that he had brown hair and an impressive looking suit of silver armor.

"Uh, hey!" he called out, doing his best to sound casual. _What, me? Yeah, I get pinned to trees all the time._ "Can you get me down from here?" The laughter redoubled. Jaune squirmed some more, wishing Pyrrha were there instead. She seemed polite enough that she'd at least _try_ to keep a straight face.

Finally, the guy standing underneath him got enough of his breath back to speak. "No way," he managed. "I am _not_ getting stuck with _you_ as my partner. As far as I'm concerned, we never met." And with that, he turned to start walking away.

"You probably shouldn't have made so much noise, then," said a third voice that Jaune didn't recognize. Cardin started spluttering.

* * *

_It is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well._

Blake wondered if that was the headmaster's idea of a joke. The way he'd explained the rules for partners, it seemed like it was at least ostensibly random. Or maybe it was a hint, that they should do exactly as she was now and hide in the treetops, waiting for the right person to walk by? It felt a little bit like cheating, but she wasn't too bothered—playing fair was a good way to die, whether you were fighting Grimm or other people.

She hopped from one branch to another, balancing easily with her hands outstretched. It was nearly as easy as walking on solid ground, partly because she'd always had good balance but mostly through practice. Glancing down, her face twisted in distaste when she noticed a spot of white on the ground below. Weiss. _That,_ she thought, _is definitely not someone with whom I can work well._

Taking extra care to move silently, she skipped across another few branches, skirting the edges of the clearing Weiss was in. Then, a low growl behind her made her freeze in place. She looked back at the ground, and immediately wished she hadn't. Weiss was backing up, raising her rapier to point at a group of Beowolves that had emerged from the undergrowth. Blake gritted her teeth and turned to leave. It wasn't like there were _that_ many of them.

Another three trotted up behind Weiss.

"Oh, come on," Blake hissed. She watched as the girl turned, muttered something under her breath that was might have been a curse, then flicked the chamber of her sword. One of the wolves took that as its cue to lunge at her, and she slashed at its face. It managed to clip her shoulder as it fell, and she jerked sideways with a yelp. The others closed in around her.

Blake jumped down from the trees without another moment's hesitation—she couldn't turn over a new leaf in Beacon by sitting back and letting the Grimm kill a fellow student. The Beowolf directly under her died as her blade struck home at the back of its neck, severing its spine. She took another in the throat before they realized what was going on, and then their numbers were back down to four. Much more manageable. She could probably just leave now without making eye contact, and Weiss would be—

A pair of startled blue eyes met hers, and Blake resisted the urge to bury her head in her hands. _Someone with whom I can work well, huh? Screw you too, Ozpin._

The two of them made short work of the rest of the Beowolves. After that, there was an uncomfortable silence while they both stared at one another. Weiss' eyes were narrowed, and she hadn't said thank you. It would've been polite.

"You," she said, after a moment. Her tone was cold, clipped.

"You're welcome," Blake snarked back.

"Why are you even here? I had that under control!"

 _Sure you did._ "I was passing by. Are we going to look for the relics or not?" Before Weiss could answer, she'd already turned on her heel and ducked into the treeline. She hadn't gone ten paces when she started hearing voices.

"...down from here?" someone was saying. Another voice was laughing, and the tone made Blake bristle almost immediately. It was the same smug, self-satisfied kind of laugh she'd been hearing all her life, the moment someone saw her ears.

"No way," the boy sneered. She could see him from between the branches now, craning his neck to look at something in the canopy. A vindictive smirk played across her face as he finished, "As far as I'm concerned, we never met."

"You probably shouldn't have made so much noise, then," she interjected smoothly, stepping out of the shadows. He choked, whirling around so quickly that he nearly fell over. She didn't bother hiding her amusement.

"I guess you're going to have to learn to live with—wait, what?" Her eyes had tracked upward to the first speaker, the one in the tree. He wasn't perched in the higher branches like she'd assumed, he was _stuck_ there. Literally. With a spear.

"How did you even..." Weiss trailed off beside her, apparently just as baffled.

"I didn't!" the blond boy whined, wiggling his arms and legs. He was hanging from his hood, his whole body dangling uselessly from—was that _Pyrrha's_ weapon?

The guy on the ground started cracking up again. Blake clenched her jaw—she was _not_ going to put herself on his level by laughing. Instead she sized up the tree, wondering how she might anchor herself so that she could free him. Weiss made the whole exercise a moot point by building a staircase out of glyphs and tugging the spear out of the tree. The boy fell with a high-pitched yelp, right toward his partner—who stepped sideways, letting him land face-first in a bush. He wheezed, struggled his way free, then collapsed.

"There, we helped." Weiss gestured imperiously toward the forest, Pyrrha's javelin still held in her right hand. "Now let's go."

"Wait!" The blond scrambled to his feet, then tried to brush off the dead leaves and mud that covered him head to toe. "We should go together! Safety in numbers, right?" Weiss opened her mouth, probably to refuse as emphatically as she possibly could.

"Good plan," Blake interjected. She felt a little bit bad at the way his face lit up, since she'd really only agreed so she wouldn't have to be alone with Weiss.

"Just... don't get in the way," Weiss snapped, and stalked off without checking to see if the rest were following.

"Hey!" The second boy was folding his arms and glowering at her retreating back. "Maybe _I_ don't want to go with you!"

"Good!" Weiss and Blake snapped, at almost exactly the same time. They very deliberately did not make eye contact.

* * *

This was more like it! The wind in her hair, the sun on her back, the— _bird!_ Ruby jerked Crescent Rose out to the side and fired off a shot, sending her spinning in the opposite direction. She missed the little guy by bare inches and went into an uncontrolled tumble. Her feet hit the canopy before she even knew what was happening, and a lot of yelps and tree branches to the face later, she was in a heap on the forest floor.

"Why?" she groaned, picking herself up with pained slowness. Nothing bent the wrong way, which was good. There was already more than enough insult in that landing, no need to add any injury.

She straightened, craning her neck to look around her. No Grimm, no other people. Perfect. Now she just needed to find Yang, and then she could get to the fighting and cut out all the stupid talking stuff. Shouldering her weapon, she marched off into the woods.

Ten minutes later, and she still hadn't found Yang. That was kind of bad, but she hadn't found anyone _else_ either, which was good. She ran through her options, wincing when she realized she really only knew four people here—and only three of those were people she'd want to be partners with for four years. Her fingertips drummed nervously on her belt.

Far off in the distance, someone screamed. She tensed, couched Crescent Rose at her shoulder, and peered through the scope. Nothing but leaves. Relaxing, she decided that was as good a direction as any and walked toward it. Then she hesitated—what if more people were doing the same thing? She'd be that much likelier to run into someone not Yang, or worse, _Weiss._ But then, someone might be in trouble! What kind of huntress would she be if—

"Hello!"

Ruby jumped a foot in the air and let out a tiny, embarrassing squeak. Whirling around, she found herself face to face with a tall girl wearing bronze armor and a vivid red sash that hung from her belt. Her brain ground to a halt as she realized that she _recognized_ that face. She'd seen her in the locker room, and...

"Aren't you that tournament fighter?" she blurted, then went beet red because _oh my god_ that was not what was supposed to come after 'Hello' in a conversation! "Er, Ruby! I mean hi! That's my name. Ruby, that is, not hi."

There was a long, stunned silence. Pyrrha—that was her name, why couldn't she have remembered that before?!—seemed a bit shellshocked. Her green eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open. Then she recovered, and fixed on a polite smile.

"I'm Pyrrha," she said, offering a hand. Ruby shook it, wishing there were a cave nearby so she could crawl inside and hide.

"So, um... you like red too?" Ruby blinked, then clapped a hand over her mouth as if she could physically restrain herself from saying the wrong thing _again._ Four years—she'd have to live with this first impression for _four whole years._

Pyrrha was still smiling, though the expression was starting to look a bit strained. "I suppose I do. It's often associated with courage in Mistral."

"Ooh, you're from Mistral? Have you ever seen a Lancer?"

"I haven't, no. I come from farther north."

Ruby slumped, stuffing her hood down over her head and muffling a whine in one hand. "I'm so sorry," she groaned. "I'm not—okay, maybe I _am_ normally like this but it's not usually my fault I make a terrible first impression, except I _guess_ blowing someone up probably counts but we were both fine anyway so..." she trailed off. Pyrrha had that wide-eyed look again. "...okay, shutting up now."

"Oh." She blinked, rallied. "Oh, no, it's no trouble." Then she smiled, and Ruby couldn't help but think this one looked more genuine than the others. "It's reassuring to know this is normal for you, and not... well..." she winced. "Nevermind."

Ruby opened her mouth to ask, then decided that was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place, so she should probably just shut up and kill things. The problem with _that_ was that there weren't any Grimm around. She cast her mind around for a safe topic, one she could navigate without accidentally bringing up something even _more_ mortifying than blowing up Weiss yesterday.

"Um... can I see your weapons?" Pyrrha shifted from foot to foot, looking almost... embarrassed? _Darn it Ruby why can't you just keep your mouth shut?_

"Oh. Well, you're welcome to look at my shield but..."

"Right, sorry!" Ruby waved her hands frantically in front of her. "I totally get it if you don't want some random person touching them, I can get kind of protective of my baby too, so..."

"No, no!" Pyrrha shook her head. "It's not that. It's just that I... well, I threw my javelin Miló when we were first launched, and I haven't reclaimed it yet."

"Oh. Do you know where it is?"

"I was heading that way, actually."

"Awesome. Um... lead the way, partner!" Pyrrha smiled again, and Ruby resisted the urge to whoop or pump her fist or something. She did it! Well, sort of—she hadn't found Yang or anyone else she'd been sort of hoping to team up with. But, hey! At least she hadn't run into Weiss!


	2. Initiation [2]

Yang put a hand on her hip, scanning her head from side to side to take in her surroundings. It wasn't really much of a temple—just a few scraps of wall held together more by vines than mortar and a ring of low stone pillars, each supporting a black or gold chess piece.

"Are those the relics?" Russel asked.

She shrugged. "I guess so."

"Sweet." He picked his way over an expanse of empty field, then grabbed the nearest relic—a gold castle.

"You know," Yang said aloud, "I really thought this would be harder."

Russel turned to look at her. "Are you trying to bring down some kind of Ubergrimm on our heads?"

"No," she said defensively. "It's just that... ugh, I'm _bored,_ okay?"

He held up a finger, as if he were about to make a point. Then he stopped, put a hand on his chin and stroked an imaginary beard. "You know? As much as I hate to tempt fate, I _would_ feel cheated if this was it. I haven't even fought anything yet."

"Really? I ran into a couple Ursai, but nothing more fun than that."

Russel gave her an impressed look. "Nice." Then he cleared his throat melodramatically and said, slowly and deliberately, "I'm sure we won't see anything more dangerous today."

Yang stared at him. He grinned impishly. "There! Now we're pretty much guaranteed to end up fighting a Deathstalker or something!"

"I think you and I are going to get along just fi—" Yang cut off abruptly as an explosion rocked the forest behind them, making her stumble. When she turned around, a plume of bright pink smoke was rising through the trees. Something roared, and there was a low whistling immediately followed by another blast. This one was closer.

"Well," Russel said, "I bet you're not bored anymore." He twirled his daggers around, bending his knees to get into a fighting stance. Yang cracked her knuckles. A tree creaked, groaned, and toppled, the tops of its highest branches crashing to the ground not fifteen feet away. And in its wake, a massive Ursa came charging through the undergrowth, its nostrils flaring. Two smaller figures were sprinting ahead of it. One—a short red-headed girl—whirled around and raised her weapon. A metallic canister shot out of the end and detonated in the Ursa's face. The explosion was both pink and heart-shaped.

Yang sprinted toward them, but it looked like the pair already had it in hand. The other figure—this one a boy in bronze armor—darted forward while the Grimm was stunned by the explosion and slashed at one of its legs. The limb buckled, sending the monster sprawling onto its belly. From there, he stabbed it right in the eye. The second it started to dissolve, he collapsed onto his butt, panting.

"Aw," the girl whined. "I wanted to ride it."

Russel cracked up. Yang stared at her for a moment—she was having trouble processing what she'd just seen. On the one hand... that was _insane,_ you couldn't ride Grimm. On the other...

"Awesome!" she cheered, holding out a hand for a high-five.

The boy rested his forehead on his knees and groaned, "Don't encourage her."

"Pfft, you worry too much... you." The redhead bopped him once on the top of the head.

"It's Dove. Which you'd know, if you'd stayed put for _five seconds_ so that we could introduce ourselves."

"I found the temple, didn't I?"

"What's your name?" Yang cut in, before they could start bickering in earnest. Plus, she couldn't just not ask the name of the girl who wanted to ride an Ursa Major.

"Nora!" She put her hand to her forehead in a cheerful salute, then grinned toothily. Her teal eyes were wild with mischief and amusement. Then they shifted, narrowing into a laser-focus as she leaned in and said, "Have you seen Ren?"

"Uh, no?"

"Who's Ren?" Russel blurted, looking a touch intimidated.

"My partner."

"Um..." Yang pointed at Dove, who hadn't gotten up from the ground. "Isn't he your partner?"

Nora hesitated, and for the first time she looked a touch worried. "I ran into him by mistake. But there's gotta be _some_ way to trade, right? 'Cause me and Ren were already partners before we took this test, since pretty much forever."

"Didn't the headmaster say we couldn't change partners?" Russel asked.

"Well, yeah..." Nora looked so crestfallen Yang could feel her heart seizing. _Damn it I'm supposed to be immune to that by now._

"Hey, it's okay. I was actually looking for my little sister when I first got here, but it's not the end of the world if we're not partners, right? We can still be on the same team, and this way we get to make new friends while keeping the old."

_"Younger_ sister?" Russel was squinting at her as though she were a difficult math problem. "Are you a year older or something?"

"Nope! She got in two years early." Yang said, feeling proud enough to burst.

Russel's eyes widened dramatically, and Nora oohed and ahhed in appreciation. Yang grinned. She was liking Beacon already!

* * *

_Why did I have to come here,_ Blake thought bitterly for the third time in as many minutes.

"I'm telling you, we're going the wrong way!" Weiss snapped.

"Sun!" Cardin shouted, pointing. He whirled around and gestured at the cliffs in the distance. "Cliffs!" Then he swept his arm in the direction he was moving. "The sun is east, the cliffs are south, and we want to go northwest!"

Weiss stared at him. Her eye twitched. "The cliffs are _north_ you troglodyte!"

"Hey, now..." Jaune started.

"What did you just call me?!"

"It means caveman," Blake said, smirking at him as he turned her way. "And you aren't helping your case."

He swung his mace in her direction, stopping it dead a foot away from her face. She didn't flinch. Instead she let her mocking grin widen a fraction, and watched as he purpled.

Weiss sighed exaggeratedly. "Oh, stop antagonizing each other. We need to turn around, in case you haven't noticed."

"No one asked you," Cardin snarled at her.

"Guys—"

"You lost your right to direct us when you led us past the same tree for the _third time,"_ Weiss shot back.

Blake snorted. "And _you_ wanted us to go back toward the launch pads."

"Whose side are you _on?"_ Weiss demanded, flushing scarlet.

"Guys!"

"None of _yours."_ Blake put as much acid into her words as she could, then turned on her heel and stalked into the woods—heading northeast, this time. The idiots could follow her or not.

_"Guys!"_ Jaune shouted, at the top of his lungs. All three of them jumped and turned to look at him.

"Can't we just follow them?" He pointed to the horizon, where a faint pink cloud could be seen rising through the treetops.

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "I know we're training to be hunters, but are we really going to run _toward_ the explosion?"

"You scared?" Cardin sneered at her.

_"Hardly."_

Blake threw her eyes skyward. That had been embarrassing to watch. _Why am I here, again?_

* * *

"So, why are you here?" Ruby asked, as she and Pyrrha waded through another patch of brambles.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

Ruby shrugged. "I just meant... well, you're from Mistral, right? So why'd you come to Beacon instead of Haven?"

"Oh!" Pyrrha looked away. She seemed to get flustered a lot more than Ruby would've thought. "Well, it's... silly."

"I mean, I decided I wanted to be a huntress so I could be like the heroes from fairytales," Ruby pointed out. "It's not silly if you can back it up."

Pyrrha laughed aloud, then smothered it with her hand. "Well," she coughed, "I was quite famous back in Mistral. It made it difficult to interact with other people, so I hoped I might have a fresh start in Beacon."

"That makes sense." Ruby twirled Crescent Rose, bisecting an errant branch that had been about to snap back and hit her. "I hate feeling like everyone is looking at me, so I'd probably want a fresh start too."

They lapsed into another short silence. Each one was a little less awkward than the last—Ruby was starting to think she might get the hang of this whole talking thing. At the very least, she was now three for four instead of two for three. Though Weiss might count as a negative one. Or maybe more like negative ten, what with blowing her up and all.

"This is it."

"Huh?" Ruby did a quick one-eighty, taking in the patch of forest they were in. It didn't look that different from anywhere else. "Are you sure?"

"I sighted the shot. My javelin should have hit this tree, here."

Ruby craned her neck to stare at it. There wasn't even a hint of red. Except... "There!"

"Where?"

She pointed at a notch in the bark, a solid twenty feet in the air. "That looks like where it hit."

Pyrrha stepped back, her hand on her hip. "It does."

"So... where is it?"

"Maybe Jaune took it with him?"

Ruby stared at her. "Jaune?"

"Oh, he's a boy I met just before initiation."

"I know him," Ruby said hastily, "he helped me up after I—uh, what I meant was, why would Jaune be here?"

Pyrrha flushed. "I, well... he seemed a bit... confused."

"Huh?"

"He was asking the headmaster what a landing strategy was."

Ruby blinked. "That doesn't sound good." Funnily enough, it wasn't that hard to imagine. "But what does that have to do with your javelin getting stuck in a tree?"

"I, well... I wanted to help keep him from falling..."

Ruby stared at her for a moment. She still didn't get it. Unless she _did,_ but she was pretty sure Pyrrha hadn't actually done what she was thinking. That would be...

"Did you pin him to the tree?" she blurted. Pyrrha nodded mutely, somehow managing to turn even redder.

Ruby rocked back a bit. "Wow. I guess that works?" Then she looked back up at the tree. "I mean, did it work? He's not there."

"I assume he got down, somehow. Maybe he found someone to partner with and they helped him?"

"I hope so." Ruby glanced at the dent in the bark, double checking that there was no blood. It looked deep. "He's nice, it'd suck if he got hurt."

Pyrrha nodded in agreement. "He must have Miló, then. We should probably look for him. For that, and... well, I feel like I ought to make sure he's alright."

"Okay! Operation find Jaune is a go!"

* * *

Yang was pacing. She'd tried to stop the second she realized what she was doing, but she needed some way to burn off her nervous energy or she'd probably snap and go charging off into the forest. The silence was starting to feel ominous. She took a deep breath in, and let it out. Ruby would be _fine,_ she was strong and smart and had probably found a partner by now. She just... wasn't _here._

"This is boring," Nora complained. She'd climbed up the side of one of the crumbling walls that surrounded the relics and was sitting with her legs dangling over its side, her knee bouncing up and down.

Dove, who was sprawled against the base of the wall, sighed irritably. "You're the one that insisted we stay and wait."

"Well, _duh._ How else can I make sure me and Ren are teammates?"

"We should go find them," Yang blurted, despite herself. Then she groaned. "Or not. They can handle themselves, right?" She strode forward, crossing the length of the temple. "But what if—"

"Stop." Dove stood up and grabbed her by both shoulders, forcing her to a halt. "Breathe. Take ten seconds to calm down, and then if you want we can go looking for your sister."

"And Ren!"

"And Ren."

Yang forced herself to follow his advice. Her heartrate slowed. Ruby would probably be fine, she _knew_ that. And yet... if something _did_ happen, and she'd just been standing here? She'd promised to protect her, but that meant not _smothering_ her, damn it!

"Let's go," she decided. "If they're fine, we can at least help them find the temple."

"I heard someone screaming before I found Dove," Nora offered helpfully. Yang's heart nearly stopped.

"It sounded male," Dove added hastily.

"Oh, totally! And we were trying to go see who it was before we got distracted by that Ursa."

"If it was a guy... was it Ren?" Yang asked.

"Pfft, nah. I'd know if it was Ren, but if _we_ heard it..." Nora trailed off, but it really went without saying. They were hunters in training—going _towards_ the sound of screaming and violence was a given. That way lay people.

They headed off into the forest, with Nora in the lead and the rest following after her. It wasn't hard to tell where she and Dove had come from—between the massive furrows the Ursa's paws had dug up and the still-smoking craters left over from where grenades had gone off, they'd left more of a highway than a trail.

Russel started whistling about ten minutes in. He wasn't half bad, but Dove felt the need to glare at him anyway. It probably didn't help that Nora was humming along with him, cheerfully out of tune. Yang might have joined too, but she was distracted by the sudden end of the swath of destruction they were following.

"This is where we spotted the Ursa," Dove told them. He didn't really have to—the great gouges left by the Grimm when it pawed the ground and charged were explanation enough.

"Where to from here, then?" Russel looked around, as though he might find a neon sign pointing the way.

Nora put a finger on her chin and squinted at the forest. "I think the scream came from... over there." She pointed. Dove nodded agreement.

They followed Nora's admittedly pretty vague directions for nearly fifteen minutes before they found anything worth noticing. Eventually the four of them emerged into a roughly circular clearing, with a tree on the northern side looking a bit worse for wear. Claw marks crisscrossed its battered trunk, and an entire branch had been snapped off.

"It looks like it got attacked by an Ursa," Dove suggested. He reached out and touched the trunk, wincing as the sap that flowed from the gouges like blood coated his fingers.

"Why would an Ursa pick a fight with a tree?" Russel kicked it. An acorn fell on his head and he recoiled with a yelp.

Yang squinted upwards, toward the branch that had snapped. "Someone was hiding up here," she said, pointing to a scrap of cloth that had caught on the jagged edges of the broken wood. "Probably the guy who screamed."

"So... where's the Ursa?" Nora seemed a little disappointed that there weren't any bloodthirsty Grimm in the area.

"Hey! Over here!" Russel pointed at a spot where the underbrush had been trampled down, hopping up and down in excitement. A little further on, they found a nearly perfect boot print sunk into a patch of mud.

Nora crouched down next to it, her face splitting into a grin. "That's Ren!" she cheered. Then she looked down again. "Aw, we're going the wrong way." The print was pointing back the way they'd come—meaning Ren must have walked through here on his way to help whoever had been in the tree. At least, assuming that Nora was right about it not being him who was screaming earlier.

"We should head back," Dove suggested. "Maybe there are other hints in that clearing about which way he might've gone next."

"And who was in the... tree." Russel trailed off, his eyes going wide. Yang turned to look at him.

"Russel, what—" He made frantic shushing motions with both hands, then tapped his ear with one finger. Yang shut up and listened. At first she couldn't tell what he was trying to say, but then... a low rasping _hiss_ as something slid across dead leaves. It sounded close— _right behind her_ close.

Whirling around, she had just enough time to notice a patch of slightly-too-dark-to-be-shadow under a nearby bush before the Grimm exploded out of cover. She dodged to her right and watched as the black head of a King Taijitu slammed into the ground she'd been occupying hard enough to knock Russel off his feet.

"Yang, Russel, you take the black head!" Nora shouted. "Dove and I can have the white one!"

"Good plan!" Dove called back. "Do you think we can kill it if we—"

"Kill it? I'm gonna ride it!"

Dove turned white as a sheet, and all eyes turned to _stare_ at his partner. "Nora, no."

"Nora, _yes!"_ Yang whooped. The Grimm was whipping forward for a second pass, and without pausing to think—this was probably one of those moments she'd come to regret later, but it'd make a pretty awesome story whether they succeeded or not—she grabbed hold of one of the ridges above the monster's eyes and wrapped her legs around its neck. Her free hand gripped Russel around the collar.

Two things soon became very clear—the first was that riding a giant two-headed snake was _nothing_ like riding a horse. Horses had manes that you could grab onto, and tended to run in nice, predictable, straight lines. Giant two-headed snakes could twist their necks all the way around so that you were upside-down, and all _they_ had for handholds were the bony ridges on their masks. The second thing was that Russel was _heavy,_ and hadn't been quick enough to grab the snake on his own. So Yang was left only mostly hanging on to a very angry, very slippery Grimm, with her new partner dangling from her free hand.

Russel summed it up best. "Holy _sh—"_

* * *

"It's official," Weiss snapped. "We're lost."

Blake bit back a groan and looked around. She probably could have found the temple when they _started,_ but had preferred not to get too involved in Weiss and Cardin's arguing. Now... well, she was pretty sure they were still in the Emerald Forest, and would give herself decent odds on finding where they'd first met up.

"Let's just turn around," she suggested, for the _fifth time._

"I'm telling you, the explosion was somewhere in this direction." Jaune pointed forwards.

"We've passed through this clearing _twice,"_ Weiss spat. "I told you we should've gone west back at that stream."

"We would've been there by now if _you_ had kept your mouth shut from the beginning." Cardin jabbed a finger at her, and her hand went to her sword hilt.

"Hey!" Jaune stepped between them, raising his hands. "I know we're all a bit stressed but—"

"Can it." Cardin shoved him, hard. He tripped over a log and went sprawling facedown on the ground.

Weiss glared at Cardin. "And your idea was _so_ much better."

Blake reluctantly offered Jaune a hand up. His palms were sweaty, and she broke contact as soon as she could. The other two were too busy bickering to notice. Weiss' hand was still wrapped around the handle of her rapier, and Blake briefly considered just letting the two of them kill each other.

Before either could draw a weapon, though, Weiss cut off midsentence. She was staring at Jaune of all things, her eyebrows furrowed. He looked back with wide eyes. "Is your forehead bleeding?" she asked incredulously. Blake turned to look and realized that it was true—there was a thin trail of red leading from just under his eyebrow, to the side of his jaw.

"Oh, gross," he complained, wiping at his face with his sleeve. "I must've hit a rock or something when I fell."

"Why didn't you have your aura up?!" Blake demanded. She'd dealt with some pretty incompetent fighters in the White Fang, but... _seriously?_

"My... uh..." Jaune shifted nervously from foot to foot. "I didn't feel like it?" All three of them were staring at him now, argument forgotten.

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. "I can't believe I'm even asking this, but... do you know what aura is?"

"Pfft, what? Of course I do. D-do _you_ know what aura is?"

Blake muffled a string of curses into her hands. Of course he didn't know what aura was—she knew it was too good to be true for at least _one_ of her teammates to be both competent and bearable. "How the _hell,"_ she asked, raising her gaze so that she could glare at him properly, "did you get into one of the best combat schools in the world?"

"I find it hard to believe you've been trained," Weiss added. Cardin snorted, then started laughing. "And _shut up,_ Cardin. This isn't funny."

Cardin stopped long enough to gasp out, "It is!"

"It really _won't_ be when we have to fight a Grimm and he gets his skull smashed in like a pumpkin," Blake snapped. Jaune turned a sickly green.

"So?" Weiss gestured at him. "Unlock his aura then."

"Why do I have to do it?!"

"Well, I'm not touching him." Jaune looked dejectedly down at his shoes.

Blake glanced at Cardin—who was still laughing, and would probably enjoy watching Jaune get eaten. Her shoulders slumped. "Fine."

* * *

"Jaune!" Ruby shouted at the top of her lungs. "Yang? Anyone?!"

"Hello?!" Pyrrha called out. She was walking just to Ruby's left, head twisting left and right as she kept an eye out for other students or Grimm.

"Ugh, where is everyone?" Ruby groaned, kicking out at a few fallen leaves and sending them scattering into the air. "Shouldn't Jaune have stayed close, since he has your weapon?"

Pyrrha shrugged. "Perhaps he encountered some trouble, or he and his partner thought they'd be more likely to meet us at the temple." Ruby couldn't help but be impressed—Pyrrha was handling being mostly weaponless a lot better than she would have. Maybe she actually used the shield more than the javelin? That'd be kind of weird, but there were people with roller blades as weapons so who was she to judge?

More out of habit than anything else, Ruby cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Jaune? Yang? Anybody?" Then, at a more normal volume, "No? Okay, that's cool too. We'll just keep walking in circles and—"

"Hello?" someone called out. Ruby nearly jumped out of her skin, and Pyrrha immediately crouched behind her shield. That definitely wasn't Yang, and it didn't sound like Jaune either—even though it was kinda timid.

"Who's there?" Pyrrha asked.

"Sky Lark and Lie Ren," the other voice answered. "Where are you guys?"

"Um, this way?" Ruby frowned, trying to gauge the direction of the other boy's voice. "I think I see you!" There was a little patch of blue between the leaves, and she sprinted towards it. In a flash she was in front of him. She had barely a second to take in his face—long and angular, with wide brown eyes and steely-blue hair. Then he yelped and fell on his butt.

"Oops, sorry!" She offered him a hand up. "I always forget, that surprises people the first time."

"How did you..."

"Ruby?" Pyrrha called out from somewhere to their left.

"Oh! Over here!" She waved, eventually catching Pyrrha's attention. Her partner jogged over, then did a double-take when she looked at the two boys.

"Hello!" she said cheerily. The first guy—the one with the bluish hair—stared at her like a deer in headlights. The other offered a polite nod. His eyes were a startling shade of pink, now that Ruby was looking at them. Neither of them were Jaune or her sister, unfortunately, but she couldn't exactly hold that against them.

Ruby realized in a sudden rush that she hadn't introduced herself or anything. "I'm Ruby!" she blurted, holding out a hand somewhere between the two boys. The pink-eyed one shook it. "And you're... Lie, right?"

"I go by Ren," he corrected gently. "It's nice to meet you."

"So you're Sky?" Ruby prompted the other boy.

He was still reeling, either from her accidentally scaring him with her semblance or from meeting Pyrrha. At the sound of his name, he turned around and managed an, "Uh-huh."

"And I'm Pyrrha."

"Cool!" Ruby nodded, mostly to herself. "Now we know each other. And, uh, did either of you see a blond guy, about this tall?" She raised her hand above her head. "His name's Jaune, and he has Pyrrha's javelin."

Sky's eyes boggled out of his head. "You don't have your weapon?" he blurted. Then he turned so red that he _almost_ made Ruby feel better about her own first meeting with Pyrrha, where she'd stuttered a lot and generally made things horribly awkward.

"We haven't seen anyone else besides you two," Ren answered. "But have you met anyone named Nora?"

Ruby shook her head. "Maybe we can look for them together?" she suggested. _Nailed it. Not awkward at all._ "I mean, I guess it's a bit different since Nora probably doesn't have your javelin. If you even use a javelin. You look more like a knife guy, y'know? I mean, um..." _I think I just used the verbal equivalent of those things on the backs of hammers that un-nail things._

Ren absorbed all of this without so much as cracking a smile, which Ruby was grateful for. He glanced at Sky—who was too busy trying not to look like he was staring at Pyrrha to protest—and nodded.

"Awesome!" she cheered. "Let's, uh... do that. Yeah." _Okay, maybe I'm not actually getting better at the whole talking thing._ She hadn't blown them up, though! That had to count for something.


	3. Initiation [3]

"This is so cool!" Jaune bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, staring at his hands and wiggling his fingers. His face was lit up with open awe, and the small scratch near his eyebrow had closed over within seconds. He was on top of the world.

Blake felt like crap. It just _figured_ he had enough aura that she'd needed to expend almost a quarter of her own to unlock it. The speed of the drain had left her so dizzy and nauseous she'd nearly keeled over. He had apologized, and then proceeded to play around with his new aura. The sheer _energy_ he was displaying made her want to shove him into a thorn bush.

"It is not _cool,"_ Weiss sneered at him. "It's mankind's inner light, not a toy."

Cardin snorted. "Hear that Jaune? She thinks you've got inner light."

"That is _not_ what I said!"

Somewhere in the trees to their right, a twig snapped. Blake whirled around to look, fighting the urge to pin her ears back against her head. Listening intently while muffling all sound with a layer of fabric felt incredibly stupid.

"There's still room on team Jaune, if you're interested..."

Weiss made a half-disgruntled, half-disgusted noise.

"Be _quiet,"_ Blake hissed.

"What? I'm not _interested,_ what's wrong with telling him—"

"I mean _all_ of you! I think I hear something." They shut up, and it occurred to Blake that she actually preferred this tense, fraught silence.

Then, just as she was about to relax and say it was nothing, she heard something rustling—closer, this time. She drew Gambol Shroud and pointed it in the direction of the noise. "There," she breathed. Weiss dropped Pyrrha's spear on the ground and drew her rapier.

"I don't hear anything," Cardin said, far too loudly.

"Shut _up!"_ Weiss hissed at him—making, if anything, even more noise. Jaune opened his mouth, maybe to say as much, and Blake clapped a hand over it.

Too late. The rustling grew louder, as though the monster sensed that it had been noticed. Worse, there were more noises behind them, to their left and right.

"We're surrounded."

"I still don't hear—" Cardin began, his tone dripping skepticism. An Alpha Beowolf exploded out of the bushes to his left and tackled him to the ground. He yelped—Blake sort of wished she could have recorded the noise—and started flailing around with his mace.

After that, all was chaos. A few Beowolves charged straight into the clearing, cutting their group into two—with Cardin and Weiss on one side, and Blake and Jaune on the other. More emerged from behind them, and Blake instinctively retreated to keep her maybe-future-teammate at her back. He made a pathetic _eep_ ing noise and backed away from the Grimm nearest him, jostling her.

"What are you doing?" she hissed under her breath.

"Uh... tactical retreat?"

Somewhere on the other side of the clearing, there was a blast of fire and a string of curses coming from Cardin. "What are you _doing?"_ Weiss demanded. "You can't just attack out of turn like that!"

"Jaune," Blake gritted out. "We need to cut a path through these Grimm." He made a noise somewhere between an "uh-huh" and a piteous whine. "Just... put your shield in front of you and run through them." His aura was strong, if the way unlocking it had devastated her own reserves was any indicator, so he'd probably be fine.

"I guess I can do that," he said, sounding only marginally more confident.

"On the count of three. One, two—"

Weiss yelped, and there was a nasty _thud_ as she smashed sideways into a tree. Blake looked up, frantically trying to figure out how the _hell_ one of the Beowolves had gotten around her guard like that. There was only Cardin, who was swinging his mace wildly at a Grimm in front of him.

For a few panicked heartbeats, the girl didn't move from where she'd sprawled on the ground. Then, slowly, she picked herself back up. Blake was expecting a pained expression, but she looked ready to cut someone.

"You feeble-minded _troll!"_ she shouted, pointing her rapier at Cardin. "What part of, _'Don't attack out of turn,'_ sounded to you like, _'Please hit me in the back of the head?!'"_

"Behind you!" Jaune called out, as another Beowolf rushed to take advantage of Weiss' lapse in focus. She turned around just in time to parry the strike, then snarled and whipped her sword out in a wide arc. A column of flame immolated the Beowolf in an instant.

Blake was so busy staring at the spectacle she almost didn't hear the whistling of displaced air behind her. Ducking and twisting to the side, she had just enough time to stare in fascinated horror at the claws descending towards her _face_ before Jaune leaped in front of her. The attack clanged off his shield, pushed him backwards, and sent him tripping over his own badly-planted feet. She went down with him, wincing as his elbow caught her in the gut.

As she lay on her back with Jaune partly on top of her, his shield digging painfully in to her upper arm, she realized with sudden and intense embarrassment that there were, all told, only six Beowolves and the Alpha, not counting the one Weiss had set on fire. She and Adam could have probably have taken them by themselves.

"Get _off,"_ she snarled, as Jaune flailed uselessly on top of her. The Beowolf he'd intercepted was gearing up for a second strike, and his shield was worse than useless where it was right then. He managed to roll to the side, and she realized what the problem was—the straps of his armor had gotten loose and snagged on his left sleeve.

Abandoning all attempts at grace and subtlety, Blake grabbed his wrist and yanked it free. She ignored his protests and physically lifted both his arm _and_ his shield up to cover them. The Beowolf came down on it like a ton of bricks, and she didn't have the leverage to show him how to _turn_ the blow instead of just tanking it. It didn't seem to matter, though—brute strength, at least, he could mostly handle.

"Up," she ordered. He scrambled to get his feet under him, so she expedited the process by hauling him up by the hood. Then she scanned the line of Beowolves separating the two groups, picked out one that seemed a bit unsure on its left hind leg—old injury, maybe?—and charged. She circled around as she faced it, forcing it to keep adjusting towards its weak side. It snarled at her, then lunged. Ducking under the blow was almost trivial. The one beside it tried to flank her, so she weaved between the two and slashed at the tendons at the back of the weaker Grimm's good knee. It toppled like a felled tree. _One down. Two if you count Weiss'._

"Blake!" Jaune howled.

She whirled around, then realized that he'd been cornered by another of the monsters. "Just knock it off balance and push past it!" she shouted back. He stared at her with wide, guileless blue eyes. _Oh, for fu—_

Pain lanced from her shoulder to her elbow as the other Beowolf she'd engaged forcefully reminded her of its presence. It faded quickly, but she could _feel_ her aura shattering—it had already been weakened by unlocking Jaune's, and this was the last straw. No more stupid mistakes.

Blake launched Gambol Shroud at the feet of her attacker, aiming to keep it off-balance. It tried to step on the ribbon, but jumped back with a yelp when she fired the pistol at its underbelly. Once it was distracted, she risked a glance at Jaune. He was on the ground with his sword held in both hands, at hilt and point, and had shoved it into the mouth of one of the Beowolves to keep it from biting him.

Another glance revealed Cardin smashing the Alpha overhanded, right on the crown of the head where its armor was thickest. _Idiot._ Weiss was too busy with another two of the creatures to correct him—Blake wasn't sure _why_ she wasn't using her semblance like she had earlier, but she was obviously suffering from the lack of mobility. Three directions—four if she counted the Beowolf she'd been engaging.

Blake rushed over to Jaune. A kick to the side of the head broke the Beowolf's concentration long enough for her to wrap her ribbon around its throat and drag it away from him. He got shakily to his feet, and the widening of his eyes told her what she'd already guessed—the Beowolf she'd been fighting before was behind her.

She tried to use her semblance, then threw herself to the ground instead when it didn't respond. Dirt and leaves filled her mouth, but both were a lot better than blood. A quick roll returned her to her feet, this time next to Jaune. Both Beowolves were advancing on them, growling deep in their chests.

Jaune laughed nervously, raising his shield. Blake, who had never trained with a shield in her life, was still fairly sure that his stance was off. Very off.

"Plant your feet," she hissed under her breath. _His parents must have donated a_ lot _of money to the school._ That might be a common thread between her three teammates, actually. He ground his heels into the dirt. Not what she'd meant, but there wasn't time to correct him.

The Beowolf that had been chewing on Jaune's sword came first. Blood was slavering from between its jaws, probably its own if she were to guess. It went for Jaune, reaching up to swipe at him. She ducked under its arm and sank her blade into its side, just below the ribcage. Jaune flailed at it with his sword, managing to chip its bone mask and accomplishing very little else.

"Jaune!" she shouted at him. "Forget the sword, just _hit_ them with the _shield."_

"What? But that's—" The other Beowolf darted out from behind its brother and lunged for him. He hit it with the shield. Solid metal collided with the monster's teeth with a hollow _clang_ and it reared back, dark ichor flowing from its damaged snout.

Blake finished off the one she'd stabbed by twisting the blade, angling it up until it grazed what she thought was probably the monster's lungs. It crumpled and began to dissolve. She was just turning to help Jaune when the boy grabbed his shield in both hands and rammed the edge end into his opponent's chest. It coughed more ichor, fell to the ground, and died.

"I... did it?" He was breathing hard, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, but a huge grin was just starting to spread across his face. Blake grabbed him by the shoulder and wheeled him around to point him at the others, who were both still fighting.

"Focus!"

"Huh? Oh, right!"

The other four monsters were split between Cardin and Weiss, with the Alpha focusing on the former and its pack surrounding the latter. One of them looked up as Blake and Jaune approached, its red eyes gleaming with eagerness and hunger. The Alpha didn't so much as glance at them. Instead, it landed a devastating blow on Cardin's shoulder, one that probably would've bisected him if it weren't for his aura and armor. As it was, he was knocked sprawling.

Jaune jumped over him, holding his shield out in front of him and brandishing his sword. Blake opened her mouth to warn him to _plant his damn feet already,_ but before she had the chance the Alpha crashed into him. He stumbled, tripped over Cardin, and flailed for a moment as he tried to keep from falling on his backside. The Grimm growled, coming in for an overhead slash when his shield dipped too low to protect his head.

"Shield up, Jaune!" Blake shouted at him. She bit her lip, glancing at Weiss—who was too busy dodging around all three of the other Beowolves to get in a single hit against any of them—and then at Jaune, still flailing around to keep from falling over. It was one of the lesser Beowolves that made her decision for her by slashing at Weiss' face. She ducked, but still took a glancing blow that opened a long gash across her forehead. All of a sudden, her not using her semblance made a lot more sense—and it might have been _Cardin_ that broke her aura.

Even as Jaune's shield rang like a bell somewhere behind her, she was already almost upon the first of the three pack members. It sensed her coming and whirled around. Long white fangs flashed in the dappled light of the forest, and she caught a glimpse of a blood red tongue as it lunged for her. Blake slid sideways, coming within inches of the monster's outstretched claws, then drew Gambol Shroud's sharpened sheath across its wrist. It stumbled, tried to catch itself, then reeled when its injured arm buckled underneath it. She brought her blade down on the back of its neck, and it stopped moving.

Weiss had looked around at almost the same time the monster had. As Blake met her eyes, she was trying to wipe the blood out of them with her sleeve—and probably staining her jacket beyond salvaging in the process. Her rapier was held in front of her, and when one of the remaining Beowolves approached her she twisted her wrist to land the point of it in the monster's eye. It went down in a heap.

"...Thank you," she said, very grudgingly. Blake nodded, stepping up beside her and facing the last Beowolf. It growled, low in its throat, then charged. She and Weiss moved at the same time, and Blake had to abort her own attack before she knocked her new "partner" over. The Grimm died choking on the blade of her rapier.

There was only the Alpha left, now. Blake turned to face the rest of the fight, and winced at the sight of Jaune backed up against a tree with the monster raining heavy blows down on his upraised shield. It clanged with every strike, and he was making a lot of undignified yelping and whimpering noises. Cardin was... she hesitated to call it _helping._ He was doing much the same thing to the Grimm that it was doing to Jaune—namely, hitting it really hard and not accomplishing a whole lot. Unlike Jaune, though, the Beowolf wasn't likely to break and run or keel over from exhaustion anytime soon.

Blake rushed over to help break the stalemate, with Weiss only steps behind her. Jaune's face lit up when he saw them coming. Unfortunately, before they got within fifteen feet of him, the Beowolf changed tactics. It twisted around in mid-strike and bulled into Cardin. He went flying, hit the ground, and skidded to a halt at Blake's feet. She pulled up short to avoid kicking him in the head—though she wouldn't exactly be wallowing in guilt if she did.

Cardin groaned, twitching feebly. Weiss made a derisive noise in the back of her throat and hauled him up by the back of his shirt-collar. Choking, he struggled for a moment before eventually finding his feet. Across from them, Jaune edged around the Grimm with his shield held in front of him—too high, blocking his vision—and came to a stop on Blake's left.

"Right," he panted. "Let's do this."

* * *

"Aw, come on!" Ruby wasn't whining. She _wasn't._ It was just... was it seriously going to be _this hard_ to find one measly blond? At this point she'd be happy with either one—if they found Jaune, Pyrrha would have her javelin back, and if they found Yang, Ruby might feel a little less like a social trainwreck. Maybe.

Pyrrha drummed her fingers against her hip and frowned. "Do you think... maybe they went the other way?"

"The temple is this way," Ren said. "At least, it's in this general direction. So..."

"Probably the way they went," Sky finished.

"Um..." Ruby frowned. There was something wrong with that logic. "Jaune doesn't really have the best sense of direction."

"He has a partner though, right?"

"We think so." Sky stood ramrod straight when Pyrrha turned to look at him. She smiled politely. "My javelin wasn't there, and I doubt he'd be able to pull it out himself."

Ren stumbled mid-step. "Pull it out?"

"I... um..." Pyrrha flushed. "I realized he didn't have a landing strategy, so..."

"That isn't actually an explanation," he observed.

Pyrrha mumbled something. Ren sent her a level stare, and she caved almost immediately. "I pinned him to a tree," she admitted.

"What?!" Sky yelped, then tripped over a root and went sprawling.

"It was all I could think of!"

"Just to clarify," Ren said, brow furrowing, "you pinned him by his clothing, right?"

"Yes? What else would I— _oh."_

Ruby winced. "Okay, let's just... not think too hard about that." Jaune was her friend, she didn't like the idea of him getting turned into a shish kebab.

Ren cleared his throat. "Moving on?" he suggested. Ruby was already starting to like his way of just wading through any and all awkwardness without comment.

They walked in silence for a while after that, which was... nice? Sort of? Ruby got the impression that Ren didn't mind it, at least, but she and Sky were both starting to get fidgety. When she blanked on conversation topics— _again—_ she decided to call out, "Jaune? Yang? Anyone?"

"Who's Yang?" Sky asked.

"My sister," Ruby explained. "We... probably would've noticed if she was close."

"Um, why?"

"Yelling. Fire. Explosions."

"Ah," Ren said, somehow packing an entire soliloquy's worth of sympathy and understanding into a single word.

Pyrrha put a hand on Ruby's shoulder and smiled. "I'm sure we'll find her."

Ruby laughed. "I'm not worried or anything, she's really strong! Just... y'know, it'd be nice to be on the same team." It would _also_ have been nice to be partners, but Ruby was mostly just glad she got someone like Pyrrha rather than... someone she may or may not have blown up.

Ren's expression suddenly pulled into a frown. Considering he usually looked so serene, it made her a little nervous. "Not that it hasn't been awesome working with you guys! And I mean, I might've been kind of freaked out by the idea of getting a random partner back at the cliffs but this has been _way_ better than I was expecting..."

The frown deepened, and his eyes narrowed. "A creature of Grimm is nearby," he said quietly. Ruby cut off her rambling, feeling... mostly just relieved that he hadn't been looking at her. Stern Ren was kind of scary.

"What is it?" Sky whispered. His voice had gone up almost an octave.

Ren closed his eyes, then turned his head to the left. "I'm not sure, but it's heading this way."

Next to her, Pyrrha raised her shield arm. Ruby's eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, you don't have your—"

"I'll be alright." Her partner smiled, and was she _actually_ still relaxed?! Ruby would've already been running in panicked circles if she'd been without Crescent Rose, in the middle of initiation, with a Grimm bearing down on her and her team of still mostly strangers.

Sky, on the other hand, was breathing a lot faster than was probably healthy. "Um," Ruby said, reaching her hand out to pat him on the back or something and then realizing she wasn't totally sure whether it would be okay to touch him or not. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he squeaked.

Ren did what Ruby had been psyching herself up to do and laid a hand on his partner's shoulder. Sky seemed to... _dim_ in a way that was hard to describe, and then immediately relaxed.

"Whoa," he breathed.

"It's my semblance." Ren removed his hand, and the strange pall that had fallen over Sky lifted. "It calms people's emotions, and I can use it to hide them from Grimm if I need to."

"Cool!" Ruby wanted to elaborate—that wasn't just cool, it was possibly one of the best things ever and did he think people would notice if he did that during, say, a class presentation or something?—but a low rumbling noise distracted her.

"Is that...?" Sky didn't finish the question, but Ren nodded anyway. "Oh. Oh, no."

"Bigger doesn't necessarily mean more dangerous," Pyrrha said helpfully. "Sometimes larger opponents are slower and have a hard time striking agile foes."

"I bet flies say the same thing about humans with flyswatters."

"Probably!" Ruby grinned. "But flies don't get to use guns!"

* * *

Russel's screams of terror echoed through the forest, sending birds exploding from the treetops above them and scattering into the clear blue sky.

_"Nora!"_ Dove roared. _"Put me down!"_ Nora laughed. Or maybe it would be better to say that she _kept_ laughing, because she hadn't really stopped since she'd first jumped on the snake.

Yang considered telling Dove that he'd probably be safer and more comfortable if he was actually holding on to the Grimm, but it seemed like a bad idea to get distracted. All her focus was currently on _not falling off,_ and _not dropping Russel._ Both were easier said than done, really.

_"Nora!"_

The snake darted between a pair of trees nearly as thick around as Ruby was tall, and Yang had to let herself slip so that she was hanging upside-down under the monster, staring up at its scaled underbelly. Then it swerved sideways, making her swing sideways and clock her head on one of the trunks _anyway._ She felt her semblance stir in the pit of her stomach and tamped it down. It seemed like it would be bad form to catch fire while she was still holding onto Russel. He lost his breath in a huff when he collided with the tree, and the screaming stopped for a moment.

"This isn't funny! Just get us down so that we can—" Dove cut off with a yelp. Yang twisted around from where she was still hanging off the black head of the King Taijitu, then got a face full of pine needles. She gagged and spat, wincing at the taste of sap. The snake had doubled back a little and deliberately rammed through the branches of one of the trees. Somewhere below her, Russel started screaming again.

As the monster doubled back around itself, Yang used the momentum to swing her new partner back up toward its back. She didn't quite manage to get him high enough to grab onto the ridges on its eyes that she was holding on to, but she _did_ let go of his hand for a moment so that she could grab his vest instead. The pitch and volume of his screams increased, and it occurred to her that _maybe_ she should've warned him first.

"I got you!" she shouted. Seconds later, the snake finished whirling around and passed within inches of itself, the black head's cheek grazing against its paler counterpart. Dove and Russel smashed into one another, clung together for a moment, and then were ripped apart by the snake's momentum.

"That's the prob— _ah!"_ Russel slashed out with one of his daggers, slicing a branch off a nearby tree an instant before it would have hit him in the gut.

"This. Is. _Awesome!"_ Nora cheered. Yang couldn't help it—she burst out laughing.

_"NORA!"_

Yang had to heave herself upwards, anchoring herself more on the monster's side than under it, so that she could avoid being smashed against the ground as it lowered its head. She couldn't quite manage the same for Russel, who ended up dragged belly-up across the forest floor for a dozen feet or so before he recovered enough to grab desperately for her arm. When the snake reared up again, he wrapped both hands around her bicep and was lifted into the air with her. She grunted, heaved, and got him sort of on top of the Grimm. Close enough, at least, that he could hold on to the back of her jacket.

"It's like riding a motorcycle!" she called back. When she craned her neck to look over her shoulder, she found him gaping at her, too stunned even to scream. Then he started laughing too—probably hysterically, but she gave him a quick high-five that nearly sent both of them tumbling off the side of the giant snake.

_"NORA! PUT. ME. DO—"_

One moment, all she could see below them were dead leaves racing by, faster even than the road did when she was on her bike. The next, there was only empty air and, far _far_ below them, water. Yang stared—and then, as gravity began to take hold, she screamed. Dove swore. Russel shrieked. And Nora? Nora _cackled._

The next thing Yang knew there was water in her clothes, dragging her down, and it was so bone-achingly cold that her mind went blank. Rational thought came back online in bits and pieces—and by the time she realized that she was _underwater_ and should probably fix that, she couldn't feel her fingers anymore.

She flailed her arms, trying to swim, then stopped. Which way was _up?_ She'd been spinning end over end when she'd hit the water. Twisting around, she squinted through the water until she found it. Light.

Kicking upward in that direction, she eventually broke the surface with a choked gasp and a litany of curses. Seconds later, something slammed into her and she was back under, struggling in the dark with no idea which way the surface was. Then, something coiled around her waist. Two pairs of red eyes loomed out of the black water, casting an eerie glow over her—and the black and white scales all around her.

Fighting the King Taijitu underwater had _not_ been the plan. Yang tried to fire Ember Celica, then yelped when the pressure of the shot hit her. Her aura protected her from any damage, but a few precious bubbles slipped out and floated toward the surface. The bullets went a pitiful few feet before losing momentum and sinking toward the river's bottom.

More gunfire sounded from somewhere above her, but the noise seemed impossibly distant and none of the shots traveled far once they hit the water. The Taijitu raised its heads, ignoring Yang entirely to focus on whoever was firing at it. She kicked out desperately, trying to loosen its grip or force it to bring her out of the water or just fucking _look_ at her, damn it!

Chest burning, she barely registered the splash of someone diving into the water until Russel was within arm's reach, his hair floating around him like a halo of seaweed. One of his daggers was held in his teeth. He reached out a hand towards her, and she grabbed it with both of her own. That, it seemed, was about as far as his plan went.

The Taijitu coiled around, fangs gaping wide as Russel braced his legs on the snake's body and _heaved._ She wanted to cry out—that _hurt,_ and the rest of her didn't even budge. Another few bubbles drifted upward, and an instinctive inhale got water in her nose. Yang let go of Russel with one hand and used it to cover her face as her lungs heaved. Everything was blurry—was that the water, or was she passing out?

Russel slipped out of her grasp as the snake's white head slammed into him. He held onto it by its mask, then grabbed the dagger in his mouth and flicked the chamber. An angry stream of bubbles spewed from its blade, and the Grimm reared back. Yang reached out, but he was too far away. The water seemed to darken, details bleeding into one another as the bone-deep cold gave way to searing heat.

An innocuous _plink,_ as something dropped into the water. Yang had enough time to look up and watch something pink slowly sink to right about the Taijitu's eye level. Right about when she realized there was a _heart_ emblazoned on the side of it, it detonated.

Both the snake's heads caved in, sending twin clouds of ichor into the water. Yang felt her ears pop, and her aura shattered. The rest of her air billowed up towards the surface, and then water was in her lungs.

Breaking the surface the second time was a shock. She coughed and spat up water, then finally managed to pull in some air. Still spluttering, she craned her neck to see what was dragging her. Russel was behind her, his arms hooked under her armpits, kicking out for the shore.

Yang let Russel drag her back onto dry land. Her legs weren't really cooperating, so she ended up on her hands and knees, still hacking up a lung. A few feet away, Dove was on his back with Nora kneeling next to him.

"Is—" she broke off, coughed. "Is he okay?" Dove managed a weak thumbs-up, then let his arm fall back to the ground.

"I found him on the lake-bed," Nora explained, uncharacteristically serious.

Russel grunted and flopped to the ground next to them. They lapsed into silence, broken only by Yang and Dove's coughing.

"So," Yang said, when she had enough of her breath back. "D'you think we passed?"

* * *

Four on one. Blake began spinning Gambol Shroud over her head, watching as the Alpha's wary red eyes followed it. Normally she'd say these odds were pretty much a guaranteed victory, but...

"Yah!" Jaune shouted, rushing forward with his shield brandished in front of him—too _high!_ —and his sword arm swinging. The Beowolf dipped into a crouch, closed its jaws around one of his legs, and flung him into the forest. He skidded to a halt nearly twenty feet away, unharmed thanks to his aura.

Cardin, who Blake would bet had been about half a second away from trying the exact same thing minus the shield, instead chose to start circling around the Grimm. Weiss wasn't moving at all—she was panting and leaning on her rapier like it was a crutch.

_Right,_ Blake thought. _Here's hoping I can solo it. Without aura. Great._

She shot Gambol Shroud, wrapping it around one of the monster's hind legs. Without her aura to enhance her strength she couldn't pull it off-balance, so instead she waited until it got bored of Cardin's constant circling and lunged at him. It didn't so much as stumble when she pulled on the ribbon, but _she_ was sent flying towards it. A twist in midair, and she was crouching on the Grimm's back with her blade in her hand. She grabbed onto its bone armor, trying to steady herself—then toppled forward over the monster's head when it stopped dead in the middle of its charge.

Cardin was in the middle of swinging at the monster as she tumbled off of it. The shaft of his mace caught her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her. The Beowolf swiped at it while he was still reeling, and it flew end over end before burying itself in the ground somewhere off to their left.

"You're in my way!" he roared at her. Blake wanted to respond, preferably with something scathing, but she couldn't actually speak, yet.

"And _you_ are in mine," Weiss snapped. Blake risked a glance her way, realized her sword was glowing, and decided she wanted to be somewhere _else._ She staggered upright and dodged another lazy swipe from the Alpha. Cardin, too, backed away rapidly.

Jaune hadn't gotten the message. He came charging back from where the Alpha had thrown him, just in time to smash shield-first into the monster when Weiss was lunging forward. She threw her strike wide to avoid hitting him, and an unfortunate section of forest burst into flames.

"You blundering moron, what—" The Grimm's claws flashed down at her, opening a nasty gash on her right arm when she threw it up to shield herself.

"Weiss!" Jaune yelped. "Are you okay?!" He turned to face her, reached out.

"Shield up!" Blake shouted at him. He complied, then ate dirt when the Alpha smashed into him.

"This is _ridiculous!"_ Weiss slashed at the air with her rapier, her right arm hanging limp. "It's one Alpha, would you all just get it together and—"

"Us?!" Blake jabbed a finger at Jaune. _"You_ almost set him on fire!"

"He ran in front of me!"

"Guys..."

Cardin actually _growled_ in frustration, his face beet red. "And who was it who decided to do a somersault right into my fucking attack!?"

"Not again... Guys!"

Weiss sneered at him. "You _do_ know you're supposed to be aiming at the _Grimm,_ right?"

"Look, _princess—_ "

_"Guys!"_

They all whirled to glare at Jaune. "What?!" Weiss snapped at him.

"I have a plan!" He said, flashing a grin—just as the Alpha slashed him across the back.

Blake managed to catch him when he pitched forward, sort of. The two of them rocked back and would've fallen over if her back hadn't hit a tree. Her head cracked against the trunk. Jaune, annoyingly enough, didn't have a scratch on him.

Cardin sniggered, which might have been the most useless reaction she'd ever seen to an ally nearly being bisected by a Beowolf. Blake glared at him, while Weiss huffed and gestured impatiently at Jaune.

"Well?" she demanded.

He shook his head, as though he were trying to get water out of his ears. "Uh, yeah. Plan."

"Jaune!"

The boy jerked to attention, his spine ramrod straight and his shield, for once, in a somewhat passable position. "Cardin!" he called out. "Can you distract it for a minute?"

"I'm not a distraction!" his partner flicked his mace out to point at Jaune, then waved it around. "You be the distraction."

Weiss shoved him at the Beowolf. He stumbled, yelped, then swung his mace to intercept an oncoming attack.

"Did you seriously just—" Jaune started.

"Plan. Now."

"Okay, uh... Blake, can you circle around it and toss me your weapon?"

She nodded.

"And Weiss can set it on fire, right?"

"I doubt that would kill it." She pursed her lips, then flicked the chamber on her rapier. "I _can_ freeze its legs. That would leave it open to more attacks, if you think you or Cardin could do anything useful." Her tone suggested that she seriously doubted that.

Jaune looked up, then clapped his hands together. "Right. Go team!"

Weiss gave him a _look,_ but darted off to find a better angle. Blake followed, circlig around Cardin and turning to lock eyes with Jaune. He held up his hands like he was about to catch a football. A gunshot sent Gambol Shroud in an arc past the Beowolf, eventually landing in Jaune's waiting hands. He fumbled for a moment, then got a grip.

"Ready!" he called out. "Pull!"

Blake heaved, then stumbled when she lost an impromptu game of tug-of-war with an aura-empowered Jaune. The Beowolf hooked an ankle on the extended ribbon and was thrown forward onto all fours. Its balance was only disrupted for a second, but before it could get up again a flash of white heralded great spires of ice that pinned three of its four legs to the ground. It howled, lashing its tail and pawing at its restraints with its one free arm.

Cardin raised his mace, the red crystal embedded in its tip glowing like an ember. Blake realized with a sudden rising horror that he was aiming for _the exact same spot_ that he'd been trying and failing to penetrate the whole fight.

"Go for the throat!" she shouted. He swung the weapon like it was a baseball bat, catching the monster right around where the corner of its jaw met the rest of its skull. There was a sickening crunch, and then the mace's head _exploded,_ sending bits of Beowolf skull flying like shrapnel in every direction. Jaune jumped in front of Weiss, his shield raised—too high, _again!—_ and Blake ducked, wincing when she felt a few bits of bone scratch her upraised arm. When she risked looking up the Alpha was slumped in its icy prison, it's headless body smoking.

That... wasn't what she'd told him to do, but she supposed it worked.

* * *

Pyrrha had been right about one thing—the Grimm didn't so much _charge_ into the clearing as it _ambled._ Ruby might've called it waddling, actually. Its face poked out from the bushes after a lot of rustling. Two tiny red eyes stared out from behind its bone mask, and just under that was a blunt-looking nose that reminded her a bit of guinea pigs. All in all, not the most intimidating thing she'd ever seen.

Ruby reevaluated that opinion when the _rest_ of it came into view. It was covered in bone spines longer than she was tall, all bristling angrily. When it blinked, she realized that there were white scales on its eyelids. It stared balefully at them for a moment, then started shuffling around until it had turned its back to them.

"Um," she said, shifting nervously from foot to foot. "What—"

There was a low _hiss,_ and some of the raised spines on the Grimm's back shot forward like bullets from a gun. Ruby yelped and got ready to run, but before she could Pyrrha had already jumped in front of her with her shield raised. A metallic _clang_ sounded as one of the quills slammed into it dead-center and stuck there, quivering.

Ruby looked towards Sky and Ren, and found that the former was on his belly with his hands over his head, shaking like a leaf. His partner crouched next to him, pink eyes zeroed in on the Grimm.

It swung its tail back and forth, then turned ponderously back around and began lumbering towards them. Ruby glanced to her left—where Pyrrha stood, still half weaponless—then to her right—where Ren was helping Sky to get his shaking legs under him.

"Pyrrha!" she called out. "Cover Sky and Ren for a sec, I have an idea!" Then she let the world blur around her. This thing was slow, whatever it was. So, she'd be _fast._ Really fast.

She came out of her dash just in time to slash the blade of her scythe across the Grimm's eyes. It squealed and swiped at her with clawed paws shaped like spades, but the attacks looked like they were moving through molasses. Another attack, redirecting her momentum to drive the point of her weapon into its back. It fired more quills, but she had already dispersed into a whirlwind of petals.

Ruby grinned. Now _this,_ she could handle. All she had to do was juke around it and hit it until it died. She circled around, then tried to hop over its shoulders—only for it to suddenly rear up onto its hind legs. A wall of bone spines smashed into her and sent her rolling into the dirt. She spat out a mouthful of leaves, then felt someone grab her forearm and pull her upright. When she shook the hair out of her eyes, Pyrrha was peering worriedly at her, keeping her shield between them and the Grimm.

"Are you alright?" Wincing—because _darn it_ that had been really cool up until the end—Ruby nodded.

"This isn't working," Ren said. He had both his guns in his hands, and even as she watched he fired off a volley of bullets straight into the monster's face. It closed its eyes, the armored lids clicking as they slid closed. Otherwise, it didn't seem to mind being shot at. "It's too heavily armored."

"Perhaps its underbelly would be less difficult to pierce?" Pyrrha suggested. "Though I have no idea how we would get it to—"

"No!" Sky burst out. All three of them turned to look at him—as did the Grimm, which made him turn an interesting shade of green that reminded Ruby of Jaune. "Er, I mean the underbellies of these things are pretty tough, too."

"You know what it is?" Ren demanded. Then, "Look out!"

The Grimm was turning around again, and they dove for cover. Ruby blurred behind a sturdy-looking tree, Pyrrha raised her shield to cover Sky, who seemed frozen in place, and Ren ran around the creature so that he was facing its less dangerous front.

Three staccato _thuds_ marked where quills had embedded themselves in Ruby's tree, and the second she heard the firing stop she was already scattering, shooting forward to reform next to Ren.

"Sky, you need to move," he shouted, jolting his partner out of whatever trance he'd been in.

"Razorpine!" the boy blurted.

Ruby stared. "Um, what?"

"That's what it is." He yelped, ducking behind Pyrrha when the Grimm—the Razorpine, apparently—took a few shuffling steps their way. "It's heavily armored pretty much everywhere, even the eyes, but its ears are weak points. Kind of. They do still have a shell around them, and _that's_ armored, but if we broke that off we'd have an opening."

"New plan!" Ruby shifted her baby until she was sighting down the scope of the rifle. "Pyrrha? Cover me. I'm gonna see if I can do that." Belatedly, she glanced towards Ren and Sky. "You guys distract it, and if you get a chance then stab it in the ear."

They scattered, and Ruby forced herself to close one eye, take a deep breath, and _focus._ Another volley of quills came their way, but she ignored them entirely in favor of squinting at the side of the Grimm's head. Where _was_ its ear, anyway?

Pyrrha's shield rang out again as a spine hit it. Ruby flinched, but kept sighting down the scope. She had to trust her partner to handle defense. Her eyes roved over black fur interspersed with white spikes, finally settling on a little flap of fur on the side of its head that she was around ninety percent sure was the ear.

"I see it!" she reported, then shot. The Grimm shook its head, roaring in protest, but was distracted by Ren slamming a palm into its face. Ruby wasn't totally sure what he was doing—probably one of those fancy aura-manipulation tricks that Uncle Qrow was always bragging about—but the attack put the monster off-balance. It turned to face him, though, bringing her target out of reach.

"Sky—" Ruby started, but he was already pointing his own weapon—it turned into a rifle too?! That was so _awesome!_

"Over here!" he shouted, firing at what Ruby figured was probably one of the ears. He didn't actually hit it, but when it looked at him she could see the ear she'd just fired on. Another slow breath, a squeeze of the trigger, and the flap of fur and bone was gone.

"Got it!"

Ren, who had been skirting around the Grimm to make sure it was always facing him and couldn't shoot him, slid to the side to grab one of the spines that had sunk into the ground. He hefted it in one hand, then darted forward and slammed it into the monster's vulnerable ear. A long, low, _horrible_ scream shook the forest—and then, silence fell.

The Grimm collapsed and started flaking away. Ruby took a third deep breath—this time less because she needed to focus and more because she was feeling kind of light-headed.

"We did it?" Sky whispered.

"We did it!" Ruby crowed, turning and giving Pyrrha a high-five. Her partner didn't quite figure out what she was doing in time, and they ended up mostly just bumping wrists.

...Yep. Fighting Grimm was still _way_ easier than dealing with people.

* * *

Yang had been pretty sure that she, Russel, Dove, and Nora would be the last in the ballroom. After all, they'd reached their objective, then gone on a completely unnecessary (but awesome!) side quest that led to them falling off a cliff and ending up half a mile downstream of where they'd landed. Even with all that, _and_ a quick trip to one of the locker rooms to shower and dry off, they _still_ walked in at around the same time as one of the other teams.

She narrowed her eyes as they passed through the doorway. "Wait, vomit boy?"

The blond of the group looked up, then cringed. Next to him, another boy Yang hadn't met burst out laughing. It wasn't the friendly kind, either.

"Did you guys have to clean up too?" Nora asked. This despite the fact that they very obviously _hadn't._ One of the girls, the shouty one that Ruby had blown up, had bandages around her forearm, but her sleeve was torn and bloody—which meant she probably hadn't been able to change. Try as she might, Yang couldn't quite manage to feel sorry for her. Watching her glare at Nora, though? That was entertaining. Arguably worth the whole falling-off-a-cliff-and-almost-drowning thing, just so that they could happen to bump into each other on the way in. Not that riding a King Taijitu wasn't already _totally_ worth it, but still.

"We're sitting down," the girl—Weiss? That sounded right—snapped. She stalked past them, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she went. Behind her, her fourth and final teammate—Blake, the one Ruby had bonded with over books yesterday—shot Yang a look that was half pleading, half resigned. She winced in sympathy. Poor book girl, and poor vomit boy.

Still, she had an awkward little sister to find. Ruby's partner wasn't going to interrogate his or herself, now were they? Sure, it definitely wasn't Weiss—thank _god_ —but it also wouldn't be either of the other two people she'd seemed to have bonded with before initiation.

"Ruby!" she called out as they approached. Her sister turned toward her, then made a shushing gesture. Yang just laughed. "Relax, everyone else is talking." She ruffled her hair as she approached, then slung an arm around her shoulders.

"Stop it!" Ruby whined. "You're so embarrassing!"

"Blame dad. So, who's your partner?"

"That would be me." One of the three that had been standing near Ruby, a tall redheaded girl, offered a hand. "Pyrrha Nikos."

"Oh!" Yang grinned. "The tournament fighter, right?" Pyrrha nodded. "Sweet!"

Another of her sister's potential teammates introduced himself as Ren, and his partner as Sky. She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, silently assessing—and then, "Ren!"

Nora came _out of nowhere_ and jumped on him, nearly knocking him to the ground. He didn't so much as flinch. Then she let go and turned her full attention on Sky. "So, we can trade now, right?"

"As I've said," Dove grumbled, "That's against the rules."

Ren nodded apologetically. "I believe our professors were monitoring us during initiation. We'd have to ask them."

"Are you going to?" Ruby blurted. Then she winced and backed up a step. "I mean, that's fine! I just, um..." The rest of whatever she was saying was almost completely unintelligible.

Ren cocked his head curiously. "Pardon?"

"I thought it would be cool to be teammates?"

Yang tensed, but the boy only smiled. "I believe it's out of our hands, now," he said simply. "But if we are teammates, then I look forward to working with you." He turned to Nora. "And we're still going to be together, regardless of how teams are arranged."

"Yeah!" Ruby gave a thumbs-up. "Especially 'cause if the teams work out like it kind of looks like they will, Yang and me will be on different teams too. So we'll be sister teams, or... er, lifelong friend teams?"

Nora lit up. "Yeah! Ooh, and we could get dorm rooms next to each other and knock down one of the walls—"

Dove shot a pleading look at Yang and Russ. They glanced at each other, and both broke out in grins. Dove put his head in his hands.

"So, what kind of Grimm did you guys fight?" Ruby broke in, bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. "We found this porcupine thing, it even shot its quills just like a real one!"

"Actually," Sky broke in, "Porcupines don't shoot their quills. They just raise them to make themselves look bigger."

"Okay, but what's _important_ is that it was super tough and we killed it! And Pyrrha didn't even have her javelin, but she was still all—" Ruby started bouncing around, making enthusiastic noises.

Pyrrha's brow furrowed. "Actually, that reminds me. I need to find Jaune and get it back."

"He just got back," Yang told her. "But you could always ask him after they assign teams."

"Especially since you guys never asked us what _we_ fought," Russel added. Ruby turned to stare at them, eyes sparkling.

"Well," Yang said, drawing out the word and savoring the anticipation on her sister's face. "We found a King Taijitu. But I don't know if you could really say we _fought_ it." Russel cracked up. Dove muffled a groan into one hand.

"What did you do?" Ren asked, directing the question very specifically at Nora.

"We rode it!" she answered happily.

"What?!" Ruby, Sky, and Pyrrha all burst out. Ren pinched the bridge of his nose, then opened his mouth to say something before he was cut off.

"Students," Professor Ozpin said. The hall fell dead silent in an instant. Yang wasn't sure if that was impressive, or just creepy. Maybe both. "If I could have your attention for a few moments, you will be assigned your teams and can proceed to your new dormitories." A screen behind him lit up, changing to show a panel of four faces—one of them her own.

"Dove Bronzewing, Russel Thrush, Nora Valkyrie, and Yang Xiao Long." He paused for a moment while they scrambled onto the stage. "The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces, and will be continuing your studies as team Brine." _Brine? Seriously?_

"Led by... Dove Bronzewing." Yang turned to look at her new leader. He seemed... less _excited_ and more resigned. She grinned and winked at him.

Yang zoned out a bit as the Headmaster called up more students, stopping only to shoo each team off the stage once their turn was over. Then, the name _Jaune Arc_ caught her attention. Vomit boy tripped over his shoelaces as he climbed the steps onto the stage. His partner sniggered.

"You retrieved the black bishop pieces," Ozpin told them. "Henceforth, you will be team Alabaster—" The screen lit up with the letters _ABSW,_ with one of their portraits under each letter— "lead by Jaune Arc." All three of his teammates turned to stare at him with varying levels of anger, jealousy, and horror. He bore it all with a forced grin that made him look more nauseous than confident. Yang felt a bit like she'd just watched the headmaster of Beacon kick a puppy.

"And, last but not least..." Jaune, obviously grateful for his part to be over, stumbled off the stage. His teammates followed—or in two out of three cases, stomped—behind him. The screen lit up with another set of four names, and Yang beamed with pride when she saw her little sister.

"The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces," Ozpin said, as soon as the four of them had gotten onstage, "and will be known as team Raspberry—lead by Ruby Rose."

Yang looked up so fast she felt her neck crick. Ruby gaped at the headmaster until her partner grinned and nudged her lightly in the side. She glanced to her right, to where the boys stood. Ren smiled and nodded encouragingly. Sky flashed a thumbs-up.

_Three new friends._ Yang had been telling her that from the start, hadn't she? And now it had actually _happened—_ the two of them were on completely different teams, and so far it looked like Ruby's teammates were going to be with her all the way. She was a leader, she had a partner she hadn't even met before initiation, and she was smiling. Ruby was finally going to be able to break out of her shell, make new friends. This would be good for her. Maybe for both of them.

That didn't mean it didn't hurt, just a little.


	4. First Impressions [1]

"I can't believe this."

Weiss was glaring at Jaune like he was something gross stuck to her shoe. A glance to his left showed Cardin—his partner—scowling fiercely. He shot a pleading look at Blake, who rolled her eyes but said absolutely nothing.

_Hooray for team solidarity,_ he thought bitterly.

"I mean, _honestly._ " Weiss was still talking, and it took every fiber of his willpower not to cringe away from her. "I can hardly understand how you're here in the first place, why on earth would he make you leader?"

"Why would he make _any_ of us the leader?" Jaune mouthed a thank-you at Blake for the intervention, but she wasn't even looking at him.

"Beacon team leaders are supposed to be strong," Cardin said, giving him a hard shove that sent him sprawling on his hands and knees. Jaune couldn't help the little yelp that escaped him. Furious with himself, he scrambled back to his feet and faced his partner. _Partner._ This was going to be a long four years.

At the very least, Weiss had turned the condescending glare on Cardin instead. "And what makes _you_ strong enough to lead a team of _lemmings,_ let alone hunters-in-training?"

Cardin puffed himself up to his full height, looming over her and folding his arms. She raised a single eyebrow.

"I highly doubt _that_ kind of strength was the idea," Blake broke in.

Weiss smirked. "Generally leaders have at least a few functioning brain cells." Then she turned to scowl at Jaune.

"...Let's just get to the dorm," he grumbled, forging on ahead so they couldn't see him wiping his face on his sleeve.

It took nearly fifteen minutes to find the right hallway, and several long moments of Jaune fumbling with his scroll before Weiss snatched it out of his hands and unlocked the door. He made a beeline for the bathroom, then jumped in the shower and rested his forehead against the cool tiles. It didn't help.

What was he supposed to do? It seemed impossible to get this team to work together. Jaune slumped, letting the water cascade down his back and shoulders. What was the point of staying, if Beacon was going to be like this?

_No._ Jaune straightened up, then started scrubbing at his hair much more violently than necessary. He didn't come this far—forging a transcript, lying through his teeth, and nearly dying in the Emerald forest—just to give up. He was going to finish his shower, walk back into the dorm, and then he was going to _lead._ This whole time, he'd just been faking it 'till he made it, and being a leader couldn't be that much different. He'd be confident and firm, he'd earn their respect, and he'd _make_ them be friends if he had to.

But when he finally walked out of the bathroom, they were _still_ arguing. Weiss was pacing back and forth near the window, while Blake reclined on the bed nearest the door with her sword on her lap. Cardin was flopped across two mattresses, leaving Jaune without a bed.

"—one good reason why Ozpin shouldn't have picked me," Weiss was saying.

Blake snorted. "Give me one good reason why he _should._ "

Weiss opened her mouth to reply. "—Besides nepotism, I mean," Blake interrupted, smirking.

"For your _information,"_ Weiss spat, "I've been studying my entire life for a leadership role."

"And yet you have the charisma of a shrew."

Weiss went beet red. It wasn't an embarrassed flush, though—it was a warning, like the blinking light on a bomb. Jaune backed up a step, so that he was partly hidden in the bathroom.

"So _you_ should lead us, then? I can't imagine that going well—you normally have to _talk_ to your subordinates, miss _moody."_

"I never said that." Blake got to her feet, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at her partner. "All I'm saying is that I think Ozpin made the right choice." Jaune's head snapped up, and he felt a warm rush in the pit of his stomach, a hint of hope that _maybe,_ this would be okay after all.

"I'd rather wrestle a Goliath barehanded than take orders from either of _you."_

Okay, that was less supportive than he'd been hoping for, but it was an opening. Jaune cleared his throat and stepped forward out of the bathroom. _Confident and firm._ "Look," he started.

"Is that an order?" Cardin drawled from where he lay sprawled across the two beds. "Because I don't feel like looking anywhere."

"What? No! I just wanted to say that I _know_ I'm maybe not the most experienced—"

Weiss and Cardin both snorted, at almost the same time. Even Blake made a low huffing noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. He bit his lip, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. "—But I'm going to work hard, okay? I can learn."

"You can _learn?"_ Weiss scoffed. "What were you doing _before_ Beacon, then? It definitely wasn't _learning,_ if you can't even hold your sword right."

Jaune looked down at the floor. "You know what? I'm going to bed." He knelt down, opened his rucksack with a bit more violence than necessary, and stormed back into the bathroom to change.

Through the door, he could hear the others starting on one another, _again._ He sighed, then walked over to the sink and stared into the mirror. His own face looked back, and he absently traced the spot on his forehead that had been cut open during initiation. It had sealed up without a trace.

"That's kind of cool, at least," he said quietly, trying to grin. It came out shaky and lopsided, but he did feel a little better.

"— _such_ a ridiculous notion!" Weiss was saying, her voice rising enough for him to make out her words through the door. He groaned and rested his forehead against the mirror.

"Why me?" he grumbled. Here he was, with barely any training to his name, masquerading as a huntsman, and now he was a _leader?_

"Stupid, stupid, stupid..." He bumped his head gently against the mirror on every repetition of the word, mindful of how his skull was probably harder now that he had an aura.

A few minutes later, he poked his head back into the dorm. Blake had just shoved Cardin unceremoniously off of the bed next to hers, so that he was only sitting on one. Then she made eye contact with Jaune and gestured to the now-empty mattress.

"Uh, thanks," he mumbled. He was pretty sure she'd done it so that she wouldn't be sleeping next to Cardin, but still.

Cardin stuck out an ankle to trip him up as he walked past, but he managed to get over it without stumbling. Then, without saying goodnight or even really looking at anyone else, he faceplanted on his new bed.

_Things will be better in the morning,_ he thought.

From where he lay, he heard the bathroom door open and close a few times. Other than that, there was blissful silence. He pushed his face into his pillow, savoring the feeling of finally, _finally_ lying down instead of flying through the air, and fighting Grimm, and running through the forest in armor. His arms hurt. His _everything_ hurt.

Then, just as he was starting to drift off, "What are you doing?" It was Blake's voice, and all Jaune could do was _pray_ the answer would be something like, "Turning off the lights!"

"Getting my clothes?" Cardin replied, sounding a bit annoyed.

"That's not your bag," Weiss pointed out.

Jaune sat up groggily, feeling like he should probably weigh in here. Instead he found himself staring at Cardin, who was rooting around in his knapsack.

"Hey!" he blurted.

Cardin broke into a grin, pulled Jaune's Pumpkin Pete Hoodie from where he'd stashed it, and held it high above his head. "Aw," he crooned, "Isn't that just adorable?"

"Cardin." Weiss glared at him and pointed at Jaune. "Give it back. Now."

"It's too late for this," Blake agreed.

"Make me." He put a hand up at around Weiss' head height and smirked. "Might have to jump for it, though."

Jaune didn't quite catch exactly what happened after that. Weiss gestured with one hand, and the next second Cardin was crashing to the ground, landing spread-eagled on his back and letting out a pitiful _huff._ Weiss stepped over to him and plucked the hoodie out of his hand.

"I'd rather not." She tossed the hoodie at Jaune, who was a little too stunned to catch it. It ended up hitting him in the face and draping over his head.

"Thanks," he said. He wasn't sure if she could hear him through the fabric.

Someone pounded on the wall to their right, and he jumped.

"Keep it down!" a muffled voice shouted.

"Sorry!" Jaune called back, wincing and pulling his sweatshirt off his head.

Cardin was already getting up. The second he could breathe again—apparently he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him—he bit out, "What the hell?!"

"Quiet," Blake hissed. "I already said, it's too late for this." She turned and glared at Weiss. _"Especially_ if you two are going to be throwing each other around."

"What was I supposed to do, ask for it nicely?"

"Was using your semblance _really_ necessary?"

"I was trying to help!"

"You were just mad that he called you short. Helping had _nothing_ to do with it."

"Oh, the nerve of—"

Cardin kicked at the foot of Weiss' bed, sending it skidding a foot or so across the floor. She lurched and nearly fell off, then turned and glared at him.

"How old are you, again?"

"Guys!" They all turned to look at him, and Jaune heaved a sigh. "Look, Blake has a point. It's way too late to be arguing. Let's just go to sleep, okay?"

"I suppose next time I should let him keep whatever he steals from you," Weiss huffed.

"That's not what I—"

Cardin glowered at him. "You trying to set a _bedtime_ for us or something?"

"No! I just—"

"Well, you certainly _act_ young enough to need one."

"Listen short stack—"

_"Excuse me?!"_

And with that, Jaune gave up. He turned around and mushed his face into his pillow, pulled the blankets over his head, and tried his best to blot out the argument. Time passed in a sort of haze—not _sleep,_ not with all the noise his teammates were making, but at least semi-dozing.

He was jolted back into full awareness when he heard the door _slam._ When he sat up, he realized that Blake was gone, and Weiss was very pointedly not looking at Cardin. A glance at his scroll told him that it was nearly two in the morning. He briefly considered trying to look for his missing teammate, but... if she came back, they might start up _again,_ and then none of them would sleep at all. As it was, she could spend a few minutes cooling off and come back when the other two were already too unconscious to start anything.

Thus decided, Jaune curled up in a ball and finally, _blessedly_ dropped to sleep.

When he got up the next morning, Blake's bed was still empty. He stared at it for a long moment, trying to shake off his own grogginess and figure out what it meant. Where did she even—

Someone rapped twice on the door.

"Uh, come in?" Jaune called back reflexively, realizing a second later that they probably _couldn't,_ since only the teachers and his other teammates had the right code on their scrolls. The door opened anyway, and Blake strode in to where her belongings lay at the foot of her bed. Weiss, who had been in the middle of arranging some of her clothes in the closet, scowled at her.

"Hi?" He wished that had come out more like an actual greeting than a question, but she'd just come out of nowhere and he was a bit flustered. Had she even slept? She... really didn't look like she had. Should he say something?

As he was debating with himself about what to do, Cardin came out of the bathroom. His hair was wet, and he was wearing his school uniform. He gave Blake an annoyed once-over, glanced at Weiss—who was still in her pajamas—and walked out the door.

"See you at breakfast!" Jaune called after him. The door slammed.

He turned around to look at the other two, but Weiss was already shutting herself in the bathroom and Blake was occupied with her bag. Jaune sighed. "Mind if I change here?" he asked. She turned her back and nodded.

After getting dressed as quickly as he possibly could, Jaune ducked out the door and started looking for the cafeteria. Once there, he located Cardin—sitting by himself, devouring a stack of waffles—and plopped down next to him. There was a horribly long, horribly tense silence while his partner ate and Jaune tried not to be too conspicuous about waiting for the girls.

When they arrived, after what was probably only twenty minutes or so but felt like several hours, Jaune waved them over. Weiss took the spot next to him, while Blake seated herself on the other side of the table and as far away from any of them as she could possibly get. Jaune was mostly just glad he hadn't started eating, so that he had an excuse to escape the table for a moment to find some food.

By the time he got back, Weiss' voice could be heard from halfway across the cafeteria. "Guys!" he called out as he rushed over. None of them looked up. Cardin made a rude gesture at Blake, who stood so violently she knocked over her orange juice. Before any of them could react, it had spread around Weiss' tray and was dripping onto the spot Jaune had been sitting in.

"Enjoy your meal," Blake said sarcastically, and stalked away. Weiss was only seconds behind her, though she went the opposite direction.

"Wait!" Jaune shouted. "We can just get some paper towels..."

Cardin laughed, then gave him a shove so that he landed on his butt on the bench—right in the middle of the puddle of juice. "See you in class," he sneered. He didn't leave the room, but instead migrated over to a group of four older looking boys.

Jaune stared morosely at his breakfast, wondering if it was too late to become a farmer or something.

* * *

"There they are!" Nora shouted, _right next to his ear._ Dove sighed—he guessed it wouldn't count as a long-suffering sigh yet, considering he hadn't even known her for a full twenty-four hours. On the other hand, he hadn't even known her for a full twenty-four hours and she'd _already_ rode a King Taijitu off a cliff and into a river while holding him by the collar. The padding under his armor was still slightly damp, and he'd have to wear it during sparring in a few hours.

Next to him, the _other_ loose cannon of the group was waving enthusiastically with both hands. "Ruby!" she called out. Dove wondered how far Atlas was from inventing volume control for people.

"Yang!" At the other end of the cafeteria, one of four figures waved back. Quite a lot of people were staring at them, now. Most of them looked like they might be second or third-years. They didn't seem happy.

"We can talk to them when we're closer," Dove suggested. "That way we wouldn't have to shout in the middle of the cafeteria." Russel had the nerve to laugh at him—as if he was being any help at all.

Being close enough to talk normally didn't seem to matter that much to Nora, which Dove should probably have anticipated. With an excited, "Ren!" she draped herself over his shoulders and stole a bit of bacon off his plate. The boy smiled placidly up at her. Dove shuddered—was _he_ going to become that numb to her, too? How many times would she have to get him thrown off a cliff before that happened?

Nora eventually sat down—right next to Ren, while Sky scooted out of the way with an alarmed expression on his face. Dove couldn't really blame him. The rest of them seated themselves opposite team RSPR, with Yang across from Ruby.

"So!" Yang clapped her hands together and grinned. "How's everyone's first day going?"

"Um."

Dove turned to look over his shoulder, only to find Jaune standing there. He was looking absolutely ridiculous, wearing the school blazer and jacket with a pair of blue jeans.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked.

"Sure!" Ruby gestured to the spot to her left, and he collapsed gratefully into the seat. His forehead hit the table with a solid _thud,_ and for a moment he didn't move a muscle.

"You okay there, vomit boy?" Yang asked.

"And where's your team?" Russel added.

Jaune made a vague gesture with his hand. "Weiss and Blake left, Cardin sat with a bunch of older students."

Dove winced in sympathy. He hadn't seen _much_ of team ABSW, but it was enough to make him appreciate his own team. Sure, Yang and Nora got along arguably _too_ well, but at least he could be sure none of them would kill each other. Not on purpose, anyway.

"I just... I don't know what to _do!"_ Jaune burst out, sitting up straight and waving his arms frantically. "They were arguing until like two in the morning!"

"Seriously?" Yang asked.

"Yes! And then Blake left, and I have no idea what she was doing all night but she only came back this morning. I can't deal with this leadership stuff." Jaune turned to look at Ruby with a pleading expression. "What would you guys do, if you were in charge of my team?"

Ruby turned and met Dove's eyes for a moment, her horrified expression suggesting she was thinking along the same lines as him— _oh, hell no._ "Uh," she squeaked. "Have you tried... trust falls?" Jaune hit his head on the table again.

"What you really need to do," Russel said, "is invent a time machine, and get yourself a better partner. Like maybe that King Taijitu."

"Guys!" Ruby folded her arms and glared at Russel. "He needs actual advice."

Pyrrha looked pityingly over at Jaune. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "If I hadn't pinned you to that tree—"

_Sorry, what?!_

"No!" Jaune waved his hands frantically. "No, no, it's okay! I mean, if you hadn't I probably would have broken my everything when I hit the ground, and I prefer my team to being dead. Mostly."

"That's good, I guess," Ruby said, with forced cheer. "And... um... you can sit with us anytime, right?" She glanced around, receiving vehement nods from Yang, Pyrrha, and Sky, smiles from Ren and Nora, and shrugs from Dove and Russel.

Jaune managed a weak grin. "Thanks, guys."

"Um, not to interrupt or anything," Sky broke in, "But I think we have class."

Dove had been dreading a full day of syllabi and nothing else. He had been _expecting_ a full day of lectures, with perhaps a little time set aside at the beginning for a general outline of the goals of the course. Something structured, as befitted one of the best hunter schools in the world.

What he got was an old man telling stories, and an overcaffeinated blur who managed to cover something like a chapter and a half of the textbook in just over seven minutes, then got derailed on a tangent about the CCT for the rest of the lecture. By the time their sparring class came around, he was nearly as fidgety as Yang and Nora and ready to finally do something that made _sense._

Glynda Goodwitch was clearly _not_ the type of teacher you wanted to cross. There was, obviously, the _riding crop,_ which should probably have been enough on its own, but she then proceeded to open the class by glaring at team BRYN _specifically_ and informing the class that Grimm were neither toys nor playmates. Her steely gaze then flickered from one team to another as she made cutting—and probably quite accurate—observations about their performance in the Emerald Forest. When she got to ABSW, her only comment was the word, "Teamwork."

"In this class," she said, once many of them were cowering in their seats, "you will be fighting one another." Someone was brave enough—or stupid enough—to chuckle. Upon turning his head to the left, Dove realized that it was Russel. He resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands.

"That does _not_ mean that this course will involve little to no work beyond the obvious. I will be giving you notes after each bout, and you will be expected to demonstrate improvement by your next match. My purpose here is to correct flaws in your fighting styles, both as individuals and in your teams. With that in mind—" She flicked the scroll in her hand, and on a screen high above her, two slots began flickering rapidly between different team names.

"Team ABSW," Goodwitch called out, "and team BRYN."

Dove hopped to his feet almost instantly, and the rest of his team followed him into the ring. He realized with a start that he hadn't actually fought with them before—both he and Yang had been out of commission during the battle with the King Taijitu, he because of his heavy armor and Yang because the giant snake had apparently tried to constrict her while _underwater._

With that said... it was a bit difficult to look at Jaune—now slightly less ridiculous in his full combat gear—and be intimidated. Weiss and Blake both looked ready to kill someone, though, and Cardin wore a cocky smirk that suggested he thought this fight was going to be a cakewalk. Goodwitch launched into an explanation of the tournament rules that Dove had heard upwards of fifty times before, but which Jaune seemed to be listening to with rapt attention.

"Cardin's big," he muttered under his breath, so that only his team should be able to hear him, "but that doesn't necessarily mean he isn't fast. Did anyone actually see him fight?"

They shook their heads.

"Weiss' semblance is hereditary, so there's a lot of footage of it online."

"Creepy," Yang observed.

"Which _means_ we know to expect lots of barriers, jumping around at odd angles, things like that. I have no idea what the hell Blake's weapon is supposed to be, but it looks like it'd be pretty unpredictable once it's in the air."

"And Jaune?" Russel asked, a lilt of amusement in his voice.

"Don't ignore him. Take him down quickly if you can, and if not _don't_ assume he's a non-entity. Being a bit... clumsy doesn't have to mean he doesn't know how to fight."

"Who takes who?"

Dove pondered that for a moment. The obvious choice was to go with partners, but... well, the main advantage of doing that was having people who were used to working together. They hadn't actually fought in pairs like that yet, so there wasn't much point.

"You and I can occupy Weiss and Blake for a while, while Nora and Yang deal with Jaune and Cardin. If Cardin really is as straightforward as he looks, well..."

"Batter up?" Nora suggested.

"Yeah," Dove said, feeling a twinge of pity for Cardin. "If not, Yang can give you a hand once Jaune is out, and between the two of you he should go down quickly. That'd free you guys up to help Russel and I with the other two."

"You got it!" Nora gave him that too-wide grin, and Dove was strangely relieved when Goodwitch finally told them to get ready. He drew his sword, deciding to stick with melee to start—Weiss struck him as the glass cannon type, and Blake's weird whip thing wouldn't be as much of a factor at point-blank range.

"Begin!"

Dove charged straight for Weiss and Blake, sparing a moment to glance at Russel to make sure he was doing the same. A glyph popped up to impede their progress, and he darted sideways around it. Russel vaulted up and over—he was more agile than Dove had expected.

"Yah!" Dove turned his head towards the noise in time to see Jaune rushing to meet Yang. He winced as she kicked the poor boy's shield away from him and landed a solid jab to his chest.

Then Blake's weapon was in the air, and he didn't have time for anything else. A gunshot sent it whirling around him, forcing him to duck or let it entangle him. Dove backpedaled to avoid the blade as it spun past his face, only for another bullet to change its direction _again._ This time he didn't dodge quickly enough, and felt his aura absorb a hit to the back of his neck that would probably have decapitated him.

_I'm not agile enough for this._ A quick check over his shoulder showed him that Weiss wasn't paying him any mind, and was instead focusing on Russel. He had managed to close the distance to the point where he was fencing with her. That wasn't necessarily a _good_ thing, though—Dove's teammate had the advantage of two weapons to her one, but she had better reach and seemed to be faster.

"Russel! Swap!" he called out. Blake had either noticed the same things he had, or had simply decided that him wanting to switch was enough reason to keep it from happening. Either way, she lashed out in an attempt to catch him around the middle. He pointed his sword at her and squeezed the trigger, jumping up to let the recoil carry him a few feet backwards.

Russel had the presence of mind to grab his shoulder as they passed one another, giving him a shove and helping send both of them in the right direction. By the time Weiss realized what was going on, she had a new opponent—and this time, _he_ had reach and the heavier weapon.

Not that it helped much. Dove wasn't a fencer—he used a broadsword and didn't have the maneuverability to do things like rotate his wrist mid-strike and _stab his opponent's hand._ Fingers smarting despite his aura, he backed up a bit to try and earn himself some breathing room. Weiss grinned. He started running, and barely dodged a stream of ice that would probably have stuck him to the arena floor. When he tried to back up again, he bumped into one of her glyphs—which, as it turned out, were a lot more _frustrating_ in person than on video.

Before Weiss could finish boxing him in with her glyphs, there was a yelp, a harsh _buzz,_ and a whoop from Yang. Dove peeked at his scroll to see that Jaune had gone below the acceptable level of aura. Looking towards Russel, he found that while he wasn't making _progress_ by any means, he wasn't in any danger of being eliminated either. He and Blake were both dodging around one another without doing much in the way of damage.

"Over here!" he called out. There were a pair of twin gunshots, and then Yang was flying _past_ him and towards Weiss. She was thrown off-balance, corrected herself with a glyph, and then twisted her off-hand so that the glyph Dove had been standing in front of shifted color. He had about half a second to try to recall what effect that lined up with before he was launched through the air.

His eyes met Yang's, very briefly, before she dodged out of his way. He hit the ground with a groan, tumbled head-over-heels, then came to a stop on his stomach. Behind him, more gunshots were sounding. He pushed himself to his feet, glanced at his own aura levels—a little over sixty, as compared to Weiss' eighty-five—then ran back towards the fight.

Weiss kept as mobile as she could, skimming over the surface of the arena like an ice-skater, but that in and of itself was draining her aura and Dove made sure to keep circling around to try to flank her. A blast of fire took another chunk off his aura, but by that point he didn't care. He ran right through it and tackled her gracelessly to the ground. While the pair of them were disoriented, Yang closed in and landed a punch that sent their opponent tumbling across half the ring.

Just as she was getting back to her feet, now with only slightly more aura than Dove, he heard Nora cackling. Dove glanced towards her and realized that she had managed to maneuver Cardin so that he was back to back with Blake, with her and Russel cornering the pair near the edge of the arena. For a moment he worried she'd forgotten the plan to split them up. Then, he realized that Cardin and Blake were practically tripping over one another. Well, Cardin kept overextending into Blake's space, and while he never actually _hit_ her, that was mostly because she seemed to be expecting him to and was watching him as though he were another enemy. The dip in her concentration was enough for Russel to get in several solid hits. And Cardin... Cardin turned to the side and snarled at her to, "Give me some room!"

"Batter up!" Nora shouted, the moment his head was turned. By the time his focus was back on her, it was far too late for him. The buzzer rang as he crashed into the barrier that protected the spectators, his aura almost entirely depleted. _Four on two,_ Dove thought. He grinned, then yelped as Yang pulled him out of the way of another fireball.

By that point, ABSW was already too far gone to put up much of a fight. With Russel darting in and out of dagger range of Blake, forcing her to switch between ranged and melee, it wasn't long before a split second's distraction let Nora get in close—which left her with barely enough aura to avoid elimination.

Dove tried to keep Weiss between him and Yang, and it didn't take her long to pick up on it. Unfortunately for her, Weiss couldn't really do much to stop him—aside from wasting her concentration and aura on forcing him back so that he couldn't flank her, and thus spending resources she needed to focus on Yang. She wasn't eliminated in one final push, like Jaune and Cardin had been. It was one of her own glyphs that pushed her over the edge, when she was forced to put up a barrier between herself and a nasty right hook.

That left Blake, with barely any aura left, and all of team BRYN. She raised her weapon, looking more resigned than anything else. Dove started shooting at her, while Russel and Nora came at her from the left and Yang from the right. A few more seconds and it was over.

Dove stood in the center of the arena as the final buzzer sounded, breathing hard. His teammates—mostly Yang and Nora, actually—were whooping and hollering, while Russel flopped down on the floor as soon as the fight ended. Goodwitch gestured for the eight of them to return to the stands, then looked in BRYN's direction.

"Commendable strategy," she said. "Though, Mr. Bronzewing—while actually murdering one another would be frowned upon in this arena, walking _through_ Dust attacks in a life-or-death fight would be very unwise." He flushed, then nodded.

"Did you see the look on her face, though?" Yang whispered, grinning. Dove had not—he'd still been blinking spots out of his eyes after running through the fire blast. He smiled back anyway. His team might be insane, but when it came down to it? They were also _good._

* * *

Jaune collapsed onto a bench next to Ruby the moment they reached the nearest table. Pyrrha reached past her partner and patted him gently on the shoulder, glad that he had taken them up on the offer to sit with them. He was good company, and it seemed cruel to force him to eat alone every day just because his teammates didn't get along.

"My everything hurts," he groaned.

"Heh, sorry," Yang said, offering him a crescent roll by way of an apology.

"And my pride. My pride hurts too." Jaune eyed Yang's mashed potatoes, which she covered with one hand.

"It's okay Jaune!" Ruby patted him on the shoulder. "You'll get there!"

Pyrrha wasn't sure she agreed—most of ABSW's problem seemed to be that three out of the four of them hated each other, which would be difficult or impossible to fix. Still, she gave Jaune her best supportive smile.

It was hard not to feel at least partly responsible for the whole mess. He had waved her off when she tried to apologize, but Pyrrha _had_ essentially doomed him to a partnership with Cardin when she stopped his fall the way she had, and then failed to get to him in time. Not that she was unhappy with Ruby, of course. It was just, well...

"You were awesome in our fight, too, Pyrrha!" Her partner looked up at her, eyes shining. "I was wondering when we were in the forest if maybe you weren't freaking out because you used your shield as your primary weapon, which obviously isn't true but you _could!_ Is the edge sharpened? You could maybe make it serrated, too, so it would be like a giant buzz saw!" On Ruby's other side, Jaune turned a few shades paler. Pyrrha poked at her food and forced a smile.

When they finally finished their meal and broke to head back to their dorms, it was declared in no uncertain terms that Ren would be spending the evening with BRYN. He waved goodbye without protest, still smiling as though nothing at all that had happened that day had perturbed him in the slightest. He was a stark contrast to Pyrrha's other two teammates. Sky had been twitchy and nervous-looking ever since sparring, possibly because he had been the first and only one of them eliminated, and Ruby seemed a bit... off. She sat down at her desk the moment they returned to their room and dug out her homework, an example Pyrrha was glad to follow, but she spent more time chewing on her pencil than writing. Her foot tapped an uneven rhythm on the floor, then stopped when Sky started drumming his fingers along with her.

For a while, they worked in companionable silence, but it was getting difficult to ignore how antsy Ruby obviously was. Pyrrha opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, then hesitated when Sky shifted position on his bed. Would talking about whatever it was in front of him be uncomfortable? It certainly could be, and she wouldn't know until she asked. "Sky?" she said instead. He sat up with a jolt, holding one of his textbooks so that he was mostly hidden behind it, then looked over at her. "I was planning on showering soon. Would you mind going first? I tend to take long ones, and I don't want to use all the hot water."

He stared at her for a moment, then nodded and rushed to the bathroom. Pyrrha frowned at the door he'd retreated behind. She knew that people could be intimidated by her at times, but this was just ridiculous.

"Um, should I go after him?" Ruby asked.

"No," Pyrrha blurted out, then winced. "That is, you _could,_ but... I actually wanted to talk to you."

Ruby seemed to shrink a little at that, her shoulders curling in and her head drooping. "Is this about breakfast?"

Pyrrha stared at her a moment, lost. "Breakfast?"

"I mean, I know I can get too excited sometimes. And then I got carried away at breakfast and you seemed kind of annoyed, so..."

Pyrrha wanted to say no, to explain that it wasn't like that, but the words stuck in her throat. She _had_ been disappointed, but it was hardly Ruby's fault. Beacon had simply failed to live up to what was starting to seem like an impossible hope. But the brief hesitation was enough to make Ruby curl in on herself even more.

"I wasn't annoyed," Pyrrha said hurriedly.

"It's okay!" Ruby managed a grin. "I get that people don't always want to talk that much—"

"No, it's not that. It's just... I told you that I came to Beacon instead of Haven to get away from my reputation in Mistral."

"Yeah."

"Well, it seems to have followed me. Weiss came up to me the morning of initiation to try and team up, and Sky can barely _look_ at me without running away, and this morning was just... a reminder, I suppose, that I can't escape the way people see me."

Ruby's eyes were wide. "Oh. _Oh!_ No, it's not like _that!"_ She giggled, then rubbed at the back of her neck. "I was geeking out about your _shield._ It's... um, kind of a weird habit of mine. I was doing the same thing when I saw Blake's weapon, remember?"

Pyrrha _did_ remember. Blake had thrown her sword into the air and begun spinning it around her in complex patterns, using the gun's recoil to change its direction mid-swing. Ruby had been leaning forward, mumbling excitedly under her breath about its design throughout the fight.

She slumped forward, leaning her elbows on the desk and burying her head in her hands. "I am _so_ sorry... I suppose I'm worrying so much about being trapped by others' expectations that I'm seeing things that aren't there."

When she looked up, Ruby was staring guiltily at the ground. "Ruby?"

"I don't know. Maybe I am doing that."

A cold knot settled in Pyrrha's stomach. "How so?" she asked, keeping her voice as steady as she could.

"It's just... I don't get how I'm the team leader." She met Pyrrha's eyes for a moment, then stared at her shoes.

"I'm not a leader," Pyrrha said softly. "I don't normally fight with other people. This... this is new to me, too."

"But it's not just you!" Ruby burst out. "Sky's some kind of super-genius! Every time I ask a question about the homework, he just _knows_ without even looking in the book! And Ren is super cool under pressure, and over pressure, and pretty much all the time. I'm just... I'm always weird around people and I can't fight like you and—" she gave the notebook in front of her a vicious shove, "—I don't _get_ this theory stuff! When am I ever gonna need to know how Deathstalkers clean their armor?!"

She slumped forward, resting her head on her arms. "Maybe... maybe I shouldn't be here."

Pyrrha was silent for what felt like an eternity, scrambling desperately for something, _anything_ to say. "That's not true," she insisted. "You led us during initiation, before Ozpin even declared us a team."

"It was Sky who figured out what it was and where to shoot it," Ruby protested, "And Ren actually killed it."

"And _you_ made sure we were coordinated."

Ruby groaned and shot her a pleading look. "But... I didn't know what I was doing!"

"Maybe not." Pyrrha gave her partner the warmest smile she could muster. "But your plan worked. Besides, we're here to learn—Sky and Ren and I are learning to follow orders, and you are learning to give them."

"I guess..." Ruby glanced morosely back at the stack of textbooks.

Pyrrha opened her mouth to say something else, then paused when she heard the water shut off in their bathroom. Sky would be out in a moment. "For what it's worth?" she said, leaning forward to catch her partner's eye. "I'm honored to have you as my leader."


	5. First Impressions [2]

Firelight glimmered in Yang's hair as she spun and kicked out, sending her opponent tumbling head over heels. He reached down with one hand, turning the fall into a cartwheel and landing on his feet. Then he crouched, drew a pistol, and fired three shots. A flick of her gauntlets deflected two, and the third sailed harmlessly past her ear. Then she sprinted forward and they went hand-to-hand, exchanging blows faster than Sky could follow. Her eyes, when she turned her face so that he could see them, were blood-red, but she was grinning like it was all a game. He supposed to her it was.

A few feet away, Russel was occupying their other opponent—a guy with a short-handled axe whose steel head was bigger than Sky's chestplate. He was less flashy, but the way he slid between blows was nearly as mesmerizing. The other boy wasn't a finesse fighter, and as fast as his heavy slashes were, he couldn't feint. That let Russel dance around him, darting in to deliver small cuts and then retreating again. He was laughing as he fought. The guy he was fighting very obviously didn't appreciate it.

Sky glanced to his left, at where his teammates were sitting. Ren, officially his partner but actually Nora's partner, who was easily capable of the same kind of liquid grace. Ruby, who blurred from place to place and swung a scythe taller than she was like she'd been born holding it. And Pyrrha—the legendary tournament fighter who had passed Beacon's initiation _without her spear_. He lowered his head to stare at his desk. Someone had drawn a crude Ursa in the lower left corner.

Jaune wasn't like that, he supposed. He'd watched the guy fight on Wednesday, and had cringed in sympathetic embarrassment at how brutally Yang had taken him apart. He was _tough,_ though. With his shield up, he'd been able to tank a direct hit without losing much aura, and even when she'd kicked it away from him he'd weathered several punishing hits without being knocked out. Sure, he hadn't done any damage back, but he _had_ distracted her for a little while.

Cardin wasn't great either, but he had the raw strength of a rhinoceros. Sky had been so exhausted by the time initiation was finally over that he'd spent almost twice as long in the shower as he normally would—this right after Pyrrha had let him go first on the assumption that she would take longer.

Sky had gotten knocked out in the first minute of RSPR's bout yesterday. He hadn't taken anyone with him, either. The girl he'd been fighting had kicked him in the head before he got his weapon up high enough to defend himself. From there he'd been dazed, flailed around a bit, then fallen to a dizzying series of slashes from her scimitar. The buzzer went off, and that was that. His team had won anyway.

Back in the ring, a double buzzer sounded. The class exploded into cheers and some laughter, and Sky looked around for some clue as to what he'd just missed. The two Yang and Dove had been fighting were tangled up in a heap several feet from Russel, who was whooping and jumping up and down. Yang still had one hand clenched into a fist. She blinked, and her eyes were purple again. Had she knocked one of them into the other? Sky couldn't be sure, and he didn't want to ask and reveal that he hadn't been paying attention.

Their bout finished, Yang and Dove and the two whose names Sky hadn't bothered trying to remember returned to the stands. Goodwitch strode out into the center of the ring, her lips pursed. "Mister Pewter, consider some form of hand-to-hand training to help you deal with opponents too agile to corner with an axe. Mister Finn, your speed and stamina are excellent but you need to pay more attention to defense. Miss Xiao Long, do try to provide some warning before you throw someone at one of your teammates." Yang and Russel both sniggered, and Goodwitch leveled a glare at them that made Sky want to hide under his desk. "Mister Thrush, while in this case you were in a position that meant you would win a battle of attrition, in future bouts I would suggest that you use Dust if you find you cannot damage your opponent." With that, she flicked her scroll and set the randomizer spinning again.

Last class had been team fights—now, partnered pairs were being thrown together. Sky perked up a little when Pyrrha and Ruby were chosen, then winced when Jaune and Cardin appeared on the other side of the screen. Goodwitch frowned, then declared, "Team Alabaster, you will all be entering this bout."

Jaune, who had already stood up, froze. "Um," he hedged, glancing fearfully at his team. "Does that mean we're fighting Raspberry?"

"It does not." Goodwitch pushed her glasses up to the bridge of her nose. "Miss Rose and Miss Nikos' combined combat score currently exceeds that of team Alabaster." Her voice was deliberately bland, probably in an attempt to avoid bruising their egos. Sky doubted it had helped much. Jaune slumped, and the other three all bristled, then shot annoyed glances at one another and their leader.

To his left, Ruby and Pyrrha were both shifting uneasily. Sky wondered if they were worried about fighting two-on-one—he would be—or about winning and humiliating Jaune. The damage had already been done, though. Students were whispering, and a few seemed to be stifling giggles. ABSW was now the team that needed a handicap. He knew from experience that labels like that stuck worse than Mistralian Marrow Leeches.

* * *

Goodwitch was repeating the tournament rules, but Jaune wasn't listening. He probably _should,_ he'd forgotten a bunch of them since his last fight, but all he could really see at that moment was the massive blade curving over Ruby's shoulder. That, and the wicked point on Pyrrha's spear—the same weapon that had impaled him by the hood to a tree a few days ago. From at least a few hundred yards. While he was falling from the sky.

"Oh, _come on,"_ Weiss whispered behind him, then slapped him hard on the shoulder. "Snap out of it! We can't lose now that it's two to one!"

"That kind of confidence usually invites challenge," Blake bit out.

"Confidence? _Confidence?_ I'm not saying we _won't_ lose, I'm saying we _can't!_ She's stacked the deck in our favor, we'd be laughing stocks!"

"Just stay out of my way, this time," Cardin grumbled. Blake turned to glare at him, curling her lip so that she exposed her canines. Her eyes glinted with something Jaune couldn't put his finger on—something he didn't like.

And then, Goodwitch was saying, "Begin!" and before Jaune could blink, Ruby was among them. Cardin lunged at her with a roar, but she slipped behind him and slashed him across the back, making him stumble. His flailing mace would have knocked Blake over if she hadn't jumped out of the way.

Jaune rushed at Ruby with his shield out, swung his sword, and sent a flurry of rose petals scattering. Before he could even wonder where she'd gone, something slammed into his side hard enough that he bounced when he hit the ground. A gunshot rang out, and for a moment he was so dazed he couldn't tell if it had been aimed at him or not. Blinking, he turned to try and figure out what was going on.

Pyrrha had reached them. She was dueling Weiss and Blake both at once, and though she couldn't get any hits in she was blocking everything they threw at her. A frustrated Weiss set up a wall of glyphs behind her. Trapped, Pyrrha rushed forward into Blake's attacks and knocked her over, her shield striking his teammate in the stomach. Weiss managed to hit her with a blast of fire, though, and her aura ticked down to eighty-five. By that time, Jaune was starting to struggle to his feet. He looked around, realizing he wasn't sure where Ruby had gone.

A buzzer rang out. Jaune glanced over and groaned—Cardin was flat on his back, groaning, while Ruby flourished her scythe once and then turned to face them. Jaune gulped audibly. Her eyes flickered over to where Weiss and Blake were still trying to deal with Pyrrha. As it was, the two of them might eventually wear her down. That wasn't going to happen if Ruby helped her first.

Wishing he could do just about anything else, Jaune raised his shield and stepped between them. Ruby winced, hesitating. Then, so quickly his eyes couldn't even follow her, she blurred through the intervening space until she was inches away. He ducked behind his shield, yelping when she delivered a punishing series of blows that made his arm vibrate painfully. She glanced at Pyrrha again, then looked back at him.

Jaune swung at her as hard as he could. She took a small step back, so that his sword went straight past her and he was left desperately trying to get his shield up again. Ruby paused for a heartbeat, then swung at the side of his body the shield was on. He grunted as it hit him, but it didn't hurt.

His eyes narrowed—he had no idea what he was doing, really, but even he could tell she'd missed an opportunity there. The memory of Yang kicking his shield away was still vivid in his mind, and when he'd dropped it for even a moment during the fight with the Beowolves they'd always been quick to attack where he was vulnerable. Ruby was going easy on him.

"Come on!" he shouted, taking another swing. This time he was mostly expecting it to miss, which it did. Ruby darted forward and slashed as his chest. He huffed out a breath and stumbled backward. He raised his sword to retaliate, only to find that she'd already moved again. A sweeping blow with the blunt end of her scythe knocked him off his feet for the second time, and her weapon swung forward as if to hit him again. She pulled back at the last second.

"Ruby!" Pyrrha called out. "I could use some assistance."

Ruby bit her lip, shooting him a pained glance even as he was scrambling upright. The next thing Jaune knew, he felt the blade of her scythe connect with his exposed back more times than he could count, so quickly that the buzzer sounded before he even hit the ground. He lay there a moment, stunned and ashamed.

It took him a moment to remember that the fight wasn't technically over. He pulled himself into a sitting position to watch his team. Weiss was fighting Ruby, though Jaune couldn't for the life of him figure out what they were _doing._ They were moving way too fast for him to follow any of it— _far_ faster than Ruby had been while fighting him—but he noticed that both were still well into the green.

Blake, on the other hand, was dealing with Pyrrha. His teammate's aura was still in the green and Pyrrha's was yellow, but the gap was closing a little bit with every passing second. Jaune watched wide-eyed as the red sash at Pyrrha's waist swirled in her wake, the easy way she would dart away, shift her weapon to a new form, then dive right back in.

"Crimson!" Ruby shouted. Without any other warning, Pyrrha switched back to her rifle, turned, and shot directly at Weiss—no, at Weiss' _feet._ She yelped, stumbled, then crashed into the ground courtesy of Ruby's scythe. Her aura dropped into the yellow. Jaune put his head in his hands. He was starting to think it would be better not to watch this.

Cardin didn't seem to agree. "Hit her already!" he jeered at Blake, who was panting with the effort of keeping Pyrrha too occupied to repeat the trick. She turned, distracted for maybe half a second, and took a bullet to the shoulder that made her stagger backwards. Maybe Jaune could've shouted at his partner to shut up, but he'd probably just do it again out of spite.

Blake backed up, whipping her sword out so that it was flying around her head again. Its sheath was in her other hand, held warily in front of her. Pyrrha stepped forward, then stopped when Ruby yelled, "Cherry!"

Jaune watched helplessly as his friend blurred forward again, ignoring Weiss completely so that she could catch up with Pyrrha. He could see Blake's eyes go wide—Pyrrha's shield was already spinning towards her. She tried to intercept it with her weapon, but before she could Ruby rematerialized and shot it off-course. Her sheath blocked the flying shield, but then Ruby blurred in and swung her scythe.

A gunshot signaled Blake's weapon changing direction, but instead of moving to help her, it shot towards Weiss. She backed up, as if she was expecting an attack, then leapt forward and grabbed it. Blake heaved—and then the blade of Ruby's scythe slammed into her. The rifle end went off, the recoil boosting the attack until it sent Jaune's teammate flying, then skidding across the arena's floor. Weiss, still holding on to Blake's sword, was along for the ride. Jaune sat up, horrified. A buzzer had sounded—Blake was out for the count—and Weiss was about to get pulled off her feet!

It looked like Weiss had anticipated what Blake was going to do better than he had, though. She didn't lose her feet, choosing instead to conjure a line of glyphs along the floor and skate over them. At the same time, her weapon started to glow yellow. Ruby finished her attack, took a breath, and then yelped as Weiss smashed into her blade-first. They went down together, and there was a crack of lightning and another buzzer. Jaune looked up sharply to see who it had been, and wasn't sure how to feel about the fact that it was Ruby.

Weiss was low in the yellow now, though. Pyrrha faced her, stretching out her off-hand to grab her shield right out of the air, then darted forward. A flurry of motion that Jaune couldn't really follow broke out. He glanced up at the screens, wincing at the sight of Weiss' aura dipping sharply until she was just barely still in the running. She cried out—more frustration than pain—and lunged forward with her blade a worrying red color. Pyrrha ducked under the blast of fire, then shot her. The final buzzer announced the end of the match, leaving Weiss red-faced and panting.

The room broke out in a few cheers—mostly Yang and Nora, really, though the rest of RSPR was clapping—and Jaune struggled back to his feet wishing that he were anywhere else. His chest and back were aching where Ruby had hit him.

Goodwitch cleared her throat, silencing Nora's enthusiastic whistling. "Well-fought. Miss Rose, your use of coordinated attacks was excellent—though I would recommend changing their names if you choose to enter the tournament this year, to avoid giving away your strategy."

Jaune gulped as their teacher turned to him and his team. Then she looked away, back towards the stands. "Class dismissed." He made to head towards the door, then stopped when Goodwitch said, "Not you, Alabaster." His face was hot with shame.

"What did you do wrong?" she asked, once everyone else was gone.

"Weak fighters," Cardin replied immediately, glaring at Jaune.

Weiss snarled at him, "You've knocked _me_ into the red more often than all our opponents combined, you useless—"

"Enough." Goodwitch rubbed at the bridge of her nose, muttering something under her breath that Jaune was almost glad he didn't catch. "Let me rephrase. What did you do _right?"_

Jaune looked at the floor, thinking furiously. They'd eliminated Ruby, hadn't they? Well, she'd taken out three of them before that, but... still. It was better than last time.

Goodwitch sighed. _"Cooperation,"_ she said, stressing every syllable. "Miss Belladonna and Miss Schnee worked together, if only very briefly."

Blake scowled. "To do that, we'd have to trust the people we're working with."

"That _is_ the idea," Goodwitch replied, annoyed.

"I don't." The reply was so blunt that it took Jaune a second to even register it. "Can I go, now?"

Goodwitch scowled at her. It was enough to make Jaune cringe, and he wasn't even its target. "With that attitude? I won't be surprised if you leave Beacon entirely." Blake stalked away without another word.

Jaune walked out into the hallway with Weiss at his left side and Cardin at his right. He braced himself as they passed out of Goodwitch's presence, and sure enough...

"—belligerent oaf!"

"Hey, short-stack—"

"—pathetic excuse for a fighter—"

"—all just getting in my way!"

He tuned them out. It was starting to become habit, which was almost as convenient as it was depressing. By the time he'd gotten back to the room, they were shouting loudly enough that one of their classmates—Jaune was pretty sure his name was Sky—poked his head out of his room to stare. When he opened the door to their dorm, he wasn't even surprised to find that Blake wasn't there.

* * *

Dove didn't think much of it when he told his team that they should take some time to train together. He'd been flooded with ideas since Ruby and Pyrrha's spar with ABSW, especially for coordinated attacks between two or more or his teammates, and wanted to test them out. It was a perfectly wholesome way to spend a Friday afternoon, all things considered.

"We don't have to be in the gym, though," Russel suggested innocently. "There's lots of room outside." Dove agreed, imagining an evening spent on the lawn running drills.

Nora then decided that there was absolutely no point in using the puny fields right out front. She had _ideas,_ and many of them involved combined attacks with Yang, explosions, or both, and they all agreed that they probably shouldn't do anything that destructive right outside the school.

All of that was fine. At least, until Yang noticed that they had happened to wander near the cliffs from initiation. She looked around, then grinned. Her eyes lit up.

"Hey!" she blurted, "Why not head down there?"

Dove shot her his best level stare. "It's off-limits."

"So?" she, Russel, and Nora all replied _in unison._ Dove felt his eye twitch.

 _"So,_ I don't want to die—ergo, I don't want to piss off Goodwitch."

"Ergo?" Russel sniggered. "You're such a nerd."

"We can't even get down there, the launch pads are probably offline!"

Yang shrugged. "Can't hurt to check, right?" Yes. Yes it could. But Dove let himself be dragged, because he was absolutely certain that Ozpin wouldn't just leave dangerous equipment lying around where first-years could get to it.

Minutes later, Dove was staring in bafflement as Russel fiddled with one of the launch pads. There was, he reported, no security to crack. All he had to do was figure out where to plug in his scroll to synch it to the pad. And then, _oh, and then,_ there was a button on his Beacon-issued, _student scroll_ that would let him catapult four first-years into the Emerald Forest with zero supervision.

"But..." Dove protested weakly. Nora was already on the launch pad, egging Russel on.

Yang flashed him a grin, then slipped on a pair of sunglasses. "Aw, c'mon! Don't tell me you didn't want to go again after initiation!"

"We nearly _drowned!_ You got constricted by a Grimm the size of a bus at the bottom of a river, and you want to _go again?!"_

"Yep!"

"That's insane!"

There was a low _thrum,_ and Nora disappeared into the horizon. Dove turned and glared at Russel, who was holding his finger just above his scroll with an innocent expression on his face. He heaved a sigh.

"I guess we have to go, now."

"That's the spirit!" Yang cheered, and shoved him onto the platform. Before he could get his balance or even realize what was happening, he was already airborne.

 _"Xiao Long!"_ he bellowed at the top of his lungs—but she probably couldn't hear him anyway.

Landing in the Emerald Forest for the second time in a week was, if nothing else, easier on his nerves. It said a lot about his team that _flying through the air_ was already starting to feel like business as usual. He just flung out his arms and legs to stabilize himself as best he could, then rolled as he hit the ground. Without aura, he would have painted the area around him red, but as it was he didn't so much as twist his ankle.

Nora was waiting for him when he stood up and dusted himself off. She was literally vibrating with suppressed excitement, craning her neck to stare at the forest around her. "It's nothing new," he pointed out. "We were here on Tuesday."

"But it's against the rules, now!" she hissed, eyes shining. Dove opened his mouth to say something—because he'd already decided not to piss off Goodwitch and his partner had definitely not gotten the message—but he was interrupted when Yang crash-landed a ways away from them. She, too, seemed infinitely more enthralled by the Emerald Forest now that they'd been explicitly told _not_ to go there.

"Do you think there are still relics out here?" Yang wondered aloud, as a green dot began growing rapidly in the sky above them.

Nora waved a hand. "Who cares? We can't do the same mission twice in a row, that's just boring!"

"We're not doing any mission," Dove reminded them. The green dot had resolved itself into the form of Russel, who was pinwheeling in midair and on a direct collision course for a sturdy-looking tree. "We're supposed to be training."

Yang poked him hard in the shoulder. "We can train on a mission! That'll be something like two-thirds of our grade by the end of our fourth year."

"How about we spar? That could be a mission if you want."

For a moment, it looked a lot like Yang was going to laugh and agree, if only for an excuse for a fight. Then Russel hit the canopy with a series of sharp _cracks_ as branches—and hopefully only branches—broke one after another. He hit the dirt at an angle, sprawled, then came to a stop at their feet.

"You okay?" Yang asked, crouching down at his side. He managed a shaky thumbs-up.

"We were just wondering if there are still relics around," Nora told him. He grunted, groaned, then rolled onto his stomach. From there he pushed himself into a sitting position. His eyes were crossed, and there was a leaf sticking out of his hair.

As soon as he was upright and mostly recovered, he shook his head. "Nah, I think Alabaster got the last two."

Dove opened his mouth to remind them that they were going to be sparring, not blundering around looking for chess pieces. Before he could, Nora got a gleam in her eye. It was the kind of look that just screamed, 'I have an idea!'

"Sparring!" he blurted, in a desperate attempt to prevent the inevitable.

"Or..." Nora said, grinning in that way she had that made Dove want to duck, "we could cross the whole forest! Vale's on the other side, right?"

"Technically," he allowed, "but only sort of. It'd be easy to miss the city completely and keep walking further into Grimm territory. Not to mention I'm fairly sure the walk would be longer than three hours. By a lot."

"Plus it'd be kind of suspicious if we took an airship from Vale to Beacon when we never officially left," Russel added.

"Exactly!"

Russel grinned. "But we could always just keep going until we find some Grimm!" Dove gaped at him for a moment, then scowled when he winked.

Yang, who had _definitely_ seen the exchange, started smiling guilelessly at Dove. "Look on the bright side! This way we can fight as a team of four, rather than having to pair up against each other."

"What? No!" Dove waved his hands in front of him. "When did this even become open to discussion? We are not wandering around in the Emerald Forest looking for trouble!"

"Relax!" Nora patted him on the shoulder hard enough that he almost fell over. "It's nothing we didn't do in initiation!"

"In initiation half of us almost drowned!"

Nora laughed, grabbed him by the arm, and started running further into the trees. He tried to dig in his heels, then gave up when he realized Russel and Yang were following her. There was no way he could drag all three of them back to Beacon—unfortunately.

"Cheer up, Dove," Russel said. "What's the worst that can happen?"

Dove turned to him, incredulous. "You did that on _purpose,_ didn't you?!" All three of them started laughing, and he realized with dawning horror that it wasn't _just_ the girls that were completely insane—it was his _entire team._

With a last reproachful glance at the heavens, Dove resigned himself to his fate. The Emerald Forest wasn't so bad once you got used to it—it was pretty, at least, and peaceful when there weren't any Grimm around trying to eat him alive. The air was crisp and clear, and the four of them were walking side-by-side while birdsong echoed around them.

"This is nice," Russel decided. "No teachers, no other students, just... y'know."

"Monsters?" Nora suggested.

"Well... yeah."

"You sound like Ruby." Yang grinned fondly at the thought. "Always wanting to skip the people stuff and get right to the fighting."

"Hey, it's not _my_ fault most people suck."

Yang mock-scowled at him. "You better not be including us in that."

He put on a thoughtful expression, then smirked. "I was kind of on the fence, but then we rode a giant snake."

Dove made a face. "Is it too much to hope that you think of that as a bad sign?"

"Bad sign?! That was awesome!"

"Of course."

"The last bit was less fun," Yang allowed. "Almost drowning really put a _damper_ on the whole thing."

"Boo!" Nora and Russel jeered at her. Dove put his head in his hands and groaned.

"Aw, c'mon! That was great!"

Something buzzed. Dove frowned, then pawed at his pocket to check if it was his scroll. He could see the others mirroring him.

"Is anyone getting a call?" Russel asked, but they only shook their heads. The droning sound grew louder.

"Company," Dove said grimly.

Nora clapped her hands together and grinned. "Company!" she cheered.

"Fifty lien says it's a Deathstalker!" Russel called out. "They're the only insect Grimm around here, right?"

"You're on!" Yang clapped him on the shoulder while he tried very hard not to loose his footing. "There's no way that's not a Lancer."

"They live in _Mistral."_

"So? Maybe the professors brought one in as a test or something."

Dove put his head in his hands again, trying very hard to ignore his three teammates and pretend that they weren't betting on what kind of horrifying monster was about to try to kill them. The noise grew louder still, and shriller, until the unending whine was enough to make him want to cover his ears. Instead, he reached to his belt and drew his sword. The others were arming themselves as well, ready for anything.

Then, a tremendous _crash_ as hundreds of branches snapped. Something tore itself free from the canopy, reaching open air and bearing down on them. Dove stared, barely even registering the bulging compound eyes, blood red behind a pale helmet that broke off into curving horns that swept back over its head. No, his attention was on the wings—not two, but _four,_ almost like a dragonfly. As the monster approached, he saw one of them clip the top of a sturdy-looking cedar. It sheared through with an awful _screech,_ sending the last five feet or so of the tree tumbling back to earth. From tip to tip, he guessed the thing's wingspan was something like ten feet.

"Okay," Russel said, starting to back away. "I think we can agree that we both lost this one."

Yang was only a step behind him, the blood draining from her face. Dove glanced at Nora, and was shocked to see that even she seemed nervous. That was enough to snap him out of his horrified paralysis.

"Let's go!" he shouted.

"Yeah, nope!" Russel agreed, turning tail and running back the way they'd come. The rest of BRYN was right behind him, sprinting full-tilt back towards Beacon. Dove was already making rapid calculations—how long had they been walking? Ten minutes? Maybe longer?

He shot a glance over his shoulder and found that, while it hadn't gained on them by _much,_ the Grimm was just a little bit closer than when last he'd looked. It was slow, then, considering it was flying. That was kind of comforting, he supposed. Then he looked again, and realized that it wasn't flying right at them—it was zig-zagging, sweeping left, then right, and back again. _Why...?_

Howling split the air, and Dove's eyes went wide with horror when he realized that the monster was no longer alone. Below it, Beowolves and lesser Ursai were gathering. It was sweeping the forest, calling its brethren.

"It's got minions!" he reported, speeding up until he was running quite a bit faster than he'd thought was possible.

"Of course it does!" Russel giggled hysterically, then broke off as he started panting. "Why... why wouldn't it... hah... have minions?"

Dove could see him flagging already. They were fit, sure, but running flat out for several long minutes while being chased by a horde of Grimm was a lot to expect from the human body. With aura, they'd manage for a while longer, but... he grimaced.

"It's okay!" Yang caught his eye, then grinned—not one of Nora's manic grins, but something warm and reassuring. "We just gotta make it back to Beacon, and then—" she broke off, and Dove turned to follow what she was looking at.

Beacon cliffs. Nearly a hundred feet of sheer rock, spreading out as far as they could see in either direction. A dead-end.


	6. First Impressions [3]

Russel felt his heart drop as he stared up... and up... and up. Nothing but unforgiving, sheer stone. There was no crossing that. He turned, quailing at the sight of the small horde of Grimm bearing down on them. High above, the lead monster was now making a beeline for them, it's two sets of wings buzzing like a mosquito in his ear.

"We're so dead," he muttered, backing up until he hit the base of the cliffs. "We are so, _so_ dead..."

Yang hit him. Not _hard,_ per se, but he was so surprised that his head jerked backwards and cracked against the rocks behind him.

"No." Her eyes had gone blood-red, almost the same shade as the Grimm, and she poked him in the chest as if to emphasize the point. "You do _not_ get to just give up on me, okay partner?"

He nodded dumbly. She grinned, and all traces of that terrifying intensity vanished from her expression. "Great. Any ideas? 'Cause I got nothin'."

Nora hefted her hammer. "Batter up?" she suggested, pointing towards the cliff top. Russel inched along the wall so that Yang was between her and him.

Yang frowned. "Yeah, but... not the way you're thinking. The way my semblance works, if somebody hit me hard enough, I could probably give you guys a boost up. Russ first, he's probably lighter than Dove, and Nora last—at least, if you're the one feeding me attacks."

_"Hell_ no!" Dove shouted, glaring at her. "You're not staying down here!"

"What else are we going to do?! I'll be fine, I can just run along the cliff and... I don't know, there has to be _somewhere_ that's easier to climb than this."

Russel was pretty sure there wasn't. Even if there were, there was no way she could get all the way back up with a flying Grimm trying to kill her. He looked up, biting his lip at the sight of the monster still bearing down on them. It was moving right for them, getting closer by the second. He doubted they even had time for Yang's plan now. But maybe...

"Uh, I think I have an idea," he said. Everyone turned to look at him. He winced. "Fair warning... it's pretty dumb."

"Spit it out!" Dove snapped.

"Well, we need to go up high. And there's a flying Grimm..."

For a moment, Dove just stared at him in confusion. Then comprehension dawned. "No. Oh no, we are _not_ doing that again!"

Nora whooped. "Yes! Operation ride the giant dragonfly is a go!"

"That is the _opposite_ of what I just said, Nora!"

Russel turned to size up the Grimm, then paled when he realized it was only a few hundred yards away. The low hum of its wings filled the air, vibrating deep in his chest and making him tremble where he stood. It was all well and good to decide to ride the thing up the cliffs, but how the hell were they going to do that?!

Dove, meanwhile, was muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like swearing. Then he straightened and clapped his hands together. "Right. I guess it's too late to come up with something better, so... Russ. If Yang tossed you onto its back, do you think you could bring it low enough for us to jump on?"

"Uh... Maybe?"

"Good enough. So Nora? Hit Yang. Yang? Throw Russ at the thing."

Russel wasn't totally sure about that, actually. He opened his mouth to say as much, but before he could Nora was already gearing up to swing her hammer. Yang stepped forward, arms crossed in front of her, fists clenched.

When the attack connected, he flinched as if it had been _him_ that Nora was smashing in with a warhammer. Yang flew back nearly a dozen feet, then stumbled on landing. Her eyes had gone red again, and he would swear that her hair was _on fire._

"Okay," she said brightly, beckoning him over. "Let's do this!"

He backed up a step. "Are we totally sure—"

"No," Dove interrupted. "But it's a bit late for that."

"...You guys _so_ owe me," Russel grumbled, then stepped forward in front of Yang. She crouched down and put her hands up, and with a lot of flailing and cursing he managed to get himself positioned so that his feet were resting in her palms. It made him think of a pair of cheerleaders, and he couldn't help but giggle a little at the sheer absurdity of it all.

"Insane," grumbled Dove, just a little too loudly. Then, "On my mark. Ready..."

The Grimm horde was closing in now, from all three sides. Above them, their master was sweeping in with its wings outstretched, its bony jaws opening and closing like a giant beartrap. It was close enough that he could make out the segments of its antennae.

"Go!" Dove shouted, and the next thing Russel knew he was flying. It felt quite a bit like the launch pads, actually. He flipped end over end a few times, then crashed into the front of the Grimm and hung there by one hand, staring directly into its eyes. Its mouth opened to bite down on his midsection, and he let himself drop with a very unmanly shriek. He was in empty air for a moment, then jerked to a sudden halt as he grabbed hold of one of its legs. There were six of them, all flexing spasmodically underneath it. He swung to the left and right with every twitch.

Far, far below—more like twenty feet or so, really, but _still—_ Yang and Nora were jumping up and down and cheering. He grinned despite himself and started to climb towards the Grimm's back. It obviously wasn't too happy about that—its flight, which had been pretty much straight a moment ago, was suddenly full of sharp turns and bucking that nearly sent Russel tumbling back to earth. Finally, he managed to get a solid grip with his knees on the monster's midsection. Then he braced himself and grabbed one of the wings in both hands.

The sheer force of it nearly tore him loose from his perch, but he held on. The Grimm buzzed angrily as it started to list to the left. Altitude bled away until the monster was just barely skimming the ground, and then the rest of his team were there. Russel reached out, leaning as far as he dared, and grabbed Yang's hand to haul her up. He didn't really _need_ to, but it seemed like a good time to pay her back for doing the same thing in initiation. Her free hand scrabbled for purchase until she found a handhold on the things back. It was less slippery than the Taijitu, if nothing else, and oh _god,_ was he comparing different Grimm in terms of how comfortable they were to ride?! He was, and he couldn't even blame Nora this time.

There was a sickening lurch as the Grimm hit the ground, and Russel let go of its wing to hold onto the armor plate he was sitting on. The buzzing grew louder as it finally got its balance back, but it didn't take off. Instead it charged towards the cliff wall. Russel screamed, and he wasn't totally sure who it was but someone else was screaming along with him. He ducked low, trying to shield himself, and grabbed Yang's arm when he lost his grip on the monster's back. The impact still sent him flying forward, and before he could steady himself he had cracked his head on the back of the monster's skull.

Another lurch, and his stomach dropped. He risked a peek over the side of their murderous steed and felt the blood drain out of his face when he realized that they were already something like a dozen yards off the ground. "Ohh," he groaned—partly fear, partly growing nausea. "This was a really bad idea."

Two of his teammates turned and glared at him. Nora was still. Freaking. _Smiling._

Then, the monster wheeled around to face the cliffs again. Yang hissed out a breath through her teeth and said, "I think it's going to keep ramming the cliff to knock us off."

Russel stared blankly back at her. He'd almost fallen off last time, and it wasn't like initiation when they just had to figure out a landing strategy—there were Grimm _everywhere_ down below, it would be like getting dropped into a moat full of sharks.

"Really, _really_ bad idea," he repeated.

Dove muffled a scream of frustration into his hand and grumbled, "I hate you all."

"What did I do?" Yang said, indignant.

"Hey!" he mimicked in a high falsetto. "Why not throw ourselves off a cliff again, that'll be a riot!"

"Guys!" Russel pointed at the oncoming cliff. They snapped back to attention in an instant.

"Grab the left wings," Dove suggested. "We can keep steering it away until it gets to the top."

Russel and Yang were on that side, so each of them tried their best to grip one gossamer wing and keep it still despite the very large, very angry Grimm that really wanted to vibrate it fast enough to shear through fully grown trees. The result was a sudden, heart-stopping _barrel roll_ that sent Dove flying into empty space. Nora grabbed him before he could fall, and then they were right-side up again and Russel and Yang let go of the monster's wings like they were on fire.

It had still worked, sort of. They were turned a little ways, and the Grimm had to go about angling itself back towards the cliff. From there it was trial and error—they needed to hold the wings tight enough to impede them, but not so tightly that they couldn't bear the monster's weight at all. With every moment they spent forcing the thing to turn, it lost a little altitude that they had to gain back. Then, finally, they were around level with the cliff's top. And... well...

"Okay," Dove said, letting go of one of the right side wings for the last time.

"You wanna ram the cliff, big guy?" Yang gave the Grimm a disturbingly affectionate pat. It buzzed angrily, then tried to swerve as it approached the wall of stone. Had it figured out what they were trying to do? It didn't really matter, though—there wasn't enough room left for it to turn, and all it accomplished was hitting the cliff broadside rather than face-first.

"Jump!" Dove shouted as they collided with enough force to knock loose part of the cliff. Russel didn't have to—he just went flying, pinwheeling end over end and landing in a crumpled heap in a nearby bush. His team wasn't far behind. Neither was the Grimm.

Russel fought to extricate himself from the bush, muttering under his breath all the while. "Great, now instead of leading a Grimm _horde_ to Beacon, we're just bringing the biggest and meanest of all of them. That's just awesome. Can't wait for show and tell."

"Less complaining, more running!" Yang told him, grabbing him by the back of his vest and tearing him free. He stumbled, yelped—that stupid thing had _thorns,_ damn it!—and then bolted for the relative safety of Beacon. Goodwitch would be pissed.

They ran in a haphazard line, with Russel and Yang in the lead and Dove and Nora right behind them. His lungs were, by this point, screaming in protest and getting ready to quit on him entirely, but that was surprisingly easy to ignore in the face of a monster the size of an airship trying to bite his head off. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he had barely enough time to throw himself sideways before it slammed into the ground where he'd just been. The cobblestone walkway splintered under its weight, and Russel had to dance across loose paving stones as he dodged a swipe from one of the monster's legs.

"Go, go, go!" he yelped, leaping over a massive chunk of rubble and landing in a dead sprint on the other side.

"We know!" Yang shouted back. He turned to look at the Grimm again—it had taken to the air and looked ready for round two. Out of the corner of his eye, he just barely registered that they were now passing the airship landing pad, and then immediately ignored it in favor of more pressing concerns.

Nora didn't. "Hey!" she called out, pointing at a lone ship sitting near the edge of the cliff. "Think we could drive that?"

"No!" Dove shouted at the top of his lungs. Russel was kind of impressed he still had the breath for things like that.

Yang, on the other hand, seemed to ponder that for a moment. "Is a motorcycle close enough?"

"Uh," Russel said, then winced when they looked at him. "I... kind of know how to pilot an airship."

"Define _kind of,"_ Dove demanded.

"I had a few lessons when I was twelve?"

"That would be a _no,_ Russ."

The Grimm screeched in fury and ploughed a massive furrow through the path that led to Beacon. Nora, who had been dead in the middle of its path, was knocked head over heels and landed in a heap on the ground. She got up, groaning. Then it whirled around and snapped its teeth at Dove. If he hadn't moved back as quickly as he had, it probably would've taken his head off. They were, if Russel was guessing right, still at least ten minute's walk from Beacon proper. The airship, on the other hand...

"Do it!" Dove shouted. Russel rushed toward the landing pad, trying very hard not to think about how he didn't have the keys, and even if hotwiring really small aircraft was probably _close enough_ to cars if you knew which wire connected to the Dust battery, it wasn't a sure thing. He was also not a hundred percent sure he could take off, and was pretty close to zero percent sure that he could land properly. But, well... giant monster.

Yang smashed one of the windows as they approached, and Russel ignored the broken glass to vault through in a single motion. He slid his hands across the controls, looking for a spot to break in and mess with some highly volatile electronics full of flammable Dust and wondering exactly which life decisions had led him so horribly astray. Then he found what he was looking for and, since he didn't have a crowbar, poked Yang in the shoulder and handed her one of his daggers. She shoved the point into the gap between the cover and the metal wall, then pried it loose. He tried not to think too hard about the fact that she was still kind of on fire, or what it would mean if she accidentally lit the Dust in the electronics.

After that, it was his own fumbling around that he was trying not to notice—wires could be a _lot_ of different things and he wasn't as certain as he'd like that they were the same as in a car. He grabbed the red one—one of _four_ red ones, actually, but he thought it was in the right place—and cut it with one of his daggers. The other was in his mouth, filling it with a coppery taste that made his eyes water.

By the time he'd picked two wires that he was mostly sure were the right ones and been rewarded with a low purr from the engine, Dove and Nora were nearly on top of the airship. That meant the Grimm was, too, and before he could think too hard about the controls and maybe spoil whatever leftover scraps of memories he had of using them, he started fiddling. One switch was the ignition, which he ignored—it required a chip to use and he'd already done that manually anyway. The others were readings of altitude and wind speed and temperature. There were dozens of them, though, and he didn't know which corresponded to what measurement so he ignored all of them. That left more buttons that looked like they might be important but, since he didn't know what they did, he might as well ignore them, too. All that remained was the wheel, and two knobs. One was bright red, so he twiddled it. Nothing seemed to happen. The other seemed to push in and out of the dashboard. He shoved it in as far as it would go.

With a sickening _lurch,_ the airship jolted forward so violently that Russel was thrown backwards off his feet. Dove caught and steadied him, but when he yanked the knob back out they _braked_ just as suddenly and everyone slid forward. Nora fell onto the controls and pushed a button, one that Russel had deliberately chosen to ignore, and something hummed to life in the bowels of the craft. He really, really hoped it was the air conditioning or something.

The second time he touched what had to be the throttle, he was gentler. Only a little, really, because they were still being chased by a Grimm, but enough that he didn't get knocked away entirely. Then they were surging forward, and he realized way too late that there wasn't actually a runway—and that the airship had been pointed towards the cliff.

"Uh, Russel...?" Yang said, apparently realizing the same thing. He grabbed the wheel and yanked it right. Nothing happened.

Russel abruptly remembered that there were two pedals on the ground, and that he had to use those to turn until he was in the air. He stamped on the right-hand one, then took another spill as the ship responded much faster than he'd been expecting. Why was everything so _sensitive?!_

They were at least pointing at Beacon, now, and the airship had been doing so much lurching and spinning around that the Grimm hadn't been able to ram them. If anyone had been watching, Russel liked to believe that it would've looked like he was using evasive maneuvers and not remembering what all the buttons did by trial and error.

"Hey, Russ?" Yang prodded his arm. "Incoming."

Russel pushed the throttle for the third time. This time he went slowly, easing on the speed. It still accelerated alarmingly quickly, but—and this was a complete guess based on the fact that there wasn't a runway in sight—the ship could _probably_ take off without that much time to speed up. With that in mind, he used the one control he actually _did_ remember perfectly and yanked on the wheel to tilt it upward. The plan rose into the air at a nearly forty-five degree angle, almost stalled, then stabilized when Russel remembered that every single button would always do about ten times as much as he expected and eased up a little.

Then the Grimm loomed in the windshield, and Russel forgot all of that and yanked the wheel left as if he was driving a car. They spun in a tight circle and dropped fifteen feet. Yang and Dove both let out sharp screams of alarm while Nora yelped and then started giggling. Russel was too focused on piloting to do either.

"Which way is Beacon?" he asked, because he was still a little dizzy and the ship had spun around way too much for him to remember where they'd been facing. Yang pointed, and he finally coaxed the airship into moving in a mostly-straight line. Mostly. It still listed heavily to the left, probably because of the wind or a bent fin somewhere or... well, he had _no idea,_ but it was manageable enough.

The school rushed up to fill their view from the windshield. Russel was simultaneously relieved because they were now close enough to get help from their professors, and dreading the point where he'd have to try to _land._ And then, without warning, there was a wrenching _screech_ from the back of the ship, and the slight leftward lean became a heavy listing that Russel had to correct by shoving the wheel almost as far as it would go the other way.

"Oh," Dove said, sounding almost like he'd just noticed a penny while walking down the street. "We're going to crash?"

Yang snorted. "Well, yeah. We knew that going in, didn't we?"

"Screw you both," Russel grumbled. "I'm a great fl—oh, shit!" He'd still had the wheel turned all the way for the right and had stepped on the rightmost pedal for good measure, only for another lurch to remove the strange resistance and send them into a spiral. By the time he'd evened it out again, he was struggling not to throw up. He very pointedly did not look at Dove or Yang.

"I think the Grimm's on the ship," Nora piped up. Russel's gaze darted to the panel of instruments, as if there would be some kind of radar like in the movies, but all he could see was a lot of nonsensical dials and something that looked a bit like a compass. It was pointing due south, not that he'd actually needed to know that.

Another hideous screech came from above them. Russel bit his lip, then punched the throttle. The airship thrust forward, and for a moment it seemed like they were free and clear. Then he heard the buzzing of the Grimm, and he couldn't really tell if it was gaining on them or not.

"What do we do?!" he blurted out. "I can't land with that thing on my tail!"

"Could you land _without—_ " Dove started to ask.

_"No!"_

"So, if we're crashing anyway..." Yang began, eyes lighting up.

"Let's ram it!" Nora finished. Dove shook his head frantically. Russel flashed him an apologetic look and twisted the wheel.

The world spun sickeningly through the windshield, until the Grimm was visible in front of them. It wasn't all that close—maybe a few hundred feet or so—but the distance was shrinking alarmingly fast. Russel gunned the throttle and did his best to nudge the airship until it was pointing dead on. Then he released the throttle slowly, grinning when he realized that it would stay pressed without him.

"Everybody out!" he shouted, and bolted for the open window. Even Dove didn't bother arguing, at that point.

For the third time in two days, Russel was in free fall. This time, though, he was more interested in what was happening up above him than in preparing for his landing. He watched the ship smash into the Grimm, caving in its chest and sending dark ichor raining down below it. Then both monster and machine were falling, and Russel noticed that they were... well... still kind of over the school.

Before he could start to process just how _dead_ the four of them were about to be, his fall stopped with a nasty jerk. It wasn't the kind of jerk that came from hitting the ground, though—when he opened his eyes, he was still almost at eye-level with the second story windows. He was also glowing purple.

"Uh... hello professor," he heard Dove say. He too was suspended in midair—they all were, though they were starting to float back to earth. Professor Goodwitch was standing below them. _Glaring._

Russel managed a sheepish grin. She did not seem amused.

* * *

_The reactivity of Dust also heavily depends on whether or not a catalyst is used—generally Aura, though other types of Dust can also function as substitutes. The purpose of a catalyst is to lower the activation energy of a reaction by providing an alternate path by which the reactants can be changed into products. This can be predicted by noting the steps of a reaction, which follow general rules..._

Ruby blinked. Reread the last sentence. Blinked again. There was absolute silence as she and her teammates worked, each on their own separate beds, not saying a word. Sky was turning pages so quickly she almost thought he was reading a comic or something, but when she'd looked over he had his nose in the same thick, dusty textbook as her. Ren had already been working long before the rest of them had started. Pyrrha was taking notes, her pencil occasionally scratching out a line or two. When Ruby had peeked at them, she'd seen that they were all written in neat, precise handwriting and that they would sum up whole paragraphs of bewildering text in half a sentence.

She'd been trying to read this paragraph for what felt like hours, now. Even though she knew what every individual word meant, when she read them all in a sentence together her eyes crossed. None of it made any sense. It hadn't the last time she'd read it, and probably wouldn't the next time. Beside her, Pyrrha jotted down another note.

Shaking her head to clear out the cobwebs, Ruby grit her teeth and read the paragraph over again. What was activation energy?! When she flipped to the glossary—something she'd been doing a lot and hadn't noticed Sky, Ren, or Pyrrha doing once—it was defined as _the minimum amount of energy reacting species must possess in order to undergo a specified reaction._ But what did that actually _mean?!_ She wanted to groan and slam her forehead into the textbook, but the room was way too quiet to risk disturbing it like that.

Fine. Skip that part. _...by providing an alternate path by which the reactants can be changed into products._ What alternate path? What _path?_ Ruby drummed her fingers on the book's pages for a moment before forcing herself to stop. Sky flipped another page.

What was the last bit, then? Noting the steps of a reaction? There were diagrams under the monster paragraph—which was also only the third paragraph, and Ruby had already seen longer and denser ones farther on. She was fairly sure that diagrams were supposed to make things _easier_ to understand, but these were covered in so many arrows and little asterisks that they made her more nauseous than anything else. Ren hummed softly—the most noise he'd made in over an hour.

Ruby wished that something, _anything_ would break the oppressive silence—and then, there was an explosion somewhere outside. She and Pyrrha jumped to their feet while Sky dropped his textbook with a yelp, and Ren crossed the room to peer out the window.

"Something's crash-landed," he said. They all took off running, and Ruby tried really hard not to be glad that someone had crashed. As soon as they were outside, she stopped dead in her tracks. There was a massive Grimm lying sort of next to, sort of inside the main building. It was twitching pathetically, scratching at the _airship_ impaled through its chest with its front legs. Then it went still and began to dissolve.

"Let's go!" Ruby decided. "The pilot might still be in there."

She burst into rose petals, then jerked to a halt in front of the twisted aircraft. It only took a glance to realize that not only was there no sign of blood—or worse, a body—but there wasn't anyone alive in there either. It was totally empty.

"What—" Pyrrha started to say, then cut off as the voice of a very angry Professor Goodwitch sounded from close by.

Curious, Ruby jogged over to figure out what was going on and almost tripped over her own feet when she saw Yang floating almost ten feet off the ground. The rest of her team were there, too, all suspended by Goodwitch's semblance and looking like they'd just solved a maze by forcing themselves through the hedges.

"Miss Xiao Long," Goodwitch snapped, "you haven't been in my class forty-eight hours yet, and I'm already seeing the merits of your Uncle's teaching style."

Ruby snorted, then started hacking and coughing to cover her own laughter. Their teacher—who hadn't noticed them until just then—whirled around and glared at her. _"Miss_ Rose, what are you doing here?"

"Um..."

"We heard the noise," Pyrrha explained, giving her a few hard pats on the back to try to stop the coughing fit. Ruby nodded frantically, eyes watering.

Goodwitch pursed her lips, then turned back to team BRYN. Ruby saw Russel squirm a in midair and start slowly rotating counter-clockwise. Their professor took a deep breath and let it out so forcefully it was a shock that none of the students were blown away. "Today," she said, her tone hard and clipped, "the four of you apparently decided that being forbidden from entering the Emerald Forest was simply for the sake of spoiling your fun. You disregarded the rules of this school, and put your own lives _and_ the lives of your classmates at risk. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

There was a long, heavy silence. Russel, who was almost upside-down by that point, spoke up. "We wanted to get some practice?" Ruby watched Dove's face scrunch up in horror.

"Well," a third voice cut in. Ruby whirled around and found that the Headmaster was behind them, sipping calmly from his mug. "I suppose you succeeded, after a fashion."

Goodwitch turned and glared at him. "Ozpin. I was just considering how to _deal_ with this."

He frowned, tapping a finger on his chin. "They'll need detention, I'm sure. Quite a lot of it."

"Detention?!" Goodwitch burst out. She opened her mouth as if to argue, then stopped. Sighed. "I suppose you won't consider suspension?"

Ozpin shook his head, smiling. "All things considered, they _did_ show quite a lot of ingenuity in dealing with the Damsel they encountered."

"By _destroying an_ _airship,_ Ozpin."

"The damage can be repaired." He smiled again. Her eye twitched, but she finally nodded. All of BRYN breathed a sigh of relief.

"Do remember," he said, as the four of them were trying to duck past him and flee. They turned and stared like deer in headlights. "The Emerald Forest is forbidden for a reason. Grimm there are culled by professors before initiation, and the region closest to the school is relatively safe—but ancient horrors lurk farther in." With that incredibly cryptic and disturbing statement, he walked away—still sipping on that mug. Ruby watched him go, half terrified of how much trouble BRYN had just barely avoided and half _painfully_ curious about those ancient horrors.

When he and Goodwitch had gone, leaving BRYN slouching near a wall and trying very hard not to look too conspicuous, Ruby rushed over and grabbed her sister's arm. "Yang, what did you do?!"

"We went into the Emerald Forest," Dove told her. His words were sort of muffled, since he'd hidden his face in his hands.

"Isn't that against—" Sky started.

_"We know."_

"But... it's like the only rule, besides showing up to class."

"We just wanted to do something fun after being cooped up all day!" Yang insisted. Ruby gave her a _look._ "...I know, I know. I won't do it again!"

"You found that Grimm?" Pyrrha asked.

Russel nodded. "It chased us all the way back to the cliffs. Along with a swarm of Beowolves and Ursai—I think it was calling them."

"How'd you get back up here?" Ren raised an eyebrow at Nora. Instead of looking embarrassed or ashamed, she seemed to be trying very hard not to grin. At his question, she stopped trying.

"We rode it!" she proclaimed. Dove, Yang, and Russel all cringed.

"You..." Ruby was having a bit of trouble processing that. "What, _again?!"_

"It was that or hope we could climb a sheer cliff while a flying Grimm tried to kill us," Dove pointed out.

"But... _again?!"_

"And then we hijacked an airship!" Nora added helpfully. Ren sighed.

"Nora, are you sure that really hap—"

"Yes," Dove and Yang interrupted.

Pyrrha was opening and closing her mouth, baffled. "I... how did you even fly it?"

Fingers were pointed towards Russel, who turned pink. "My dad might have shown me the controls. When I was twelve."

"You still remembered all that?" Ruby asked, fascinated. He went from pink to red.

"Not... exactly."

_"What?!"_ Dove roared.

Russel shifted from foot to foot. "I might have been making some of it up as I went along. And by some I mean, like, a solid three quarters."

Dove twitched—it wasn't his eyes, or his hands, more like a full body tremor of sheer incredulity and horror. Ruby took a tiny step back so that she was behind Pyrrha.

"Room," Dove snapped. "Now."

"Um—" Yang started to say, but he whirled around and glared at her. She shut up, wincing. Dove turned around and started heading back towards the dorms, prompting the rest of them to follow.

Ruby was reluctant to return to their room, and to the textbook full of dull, complicated, confusing paragraphs written in tiny font. She was even more reluctant to go back to that suffocating silence. But, with BRYN and the giant Grimm both gone, there was no more reason to stay outside. So, back she trudged, as slowly as she dared.

In what felt like no time at all, she was once again staring at that same stupid paragraph with its dumb diagrams full of useless arrows that got all tangled together until they looked like spaghetti. Sky closed his own book and put it away only a few minutes after they got back. Ruby was pretty sure she wasn't even a quarter of the way through the chapter. _This_ chapter. There were two more to go, all due by Monday.

Ruby glanced at the clock on the wall and winced. _Eight forty-five._ They'd been at it nearly two hours, now, and only she and Ren were still going. He seemed to be reading very slowly, but more because he was letting it all percolate or whatever that was called instead of... well, what _felt_ a lot like wrestling an angry Ursa Major. And she was only a twelfth of the way done! She could probably do a chapter each day and still be done by the end of the weekend, but at this rate, she'd still be working until... Ruby slumped. About one in the morning.

That was it. She bit her lip, hesitated, then murmured, "Pyrrha?"

Her partner turned from where she'd been cleaning Miló and Akoúo, and Ruby winced again. She'd hate to be interrupted while she was caring for Crescent Rose—which she hadn't _done,_ she'd been too busy with the stupid textbook. That settled it. She got off her bed and sat down to where Pyrrha had made room for her on her own.

"Um..." she said, casting a furtive glance towards the boys. Sky was listening to music, so no problem there, and Ren had put his book down and was sitting cross-legged, his eyes closed. She lowered her voice a little. "I'm kind of... uh..." she slumped. "I'm lost."

Pyrrha straightened up. "Oh! Would you like some help?" Ruby nodded at the floor.

If her partner noticed how far she hadn't gotten in two hours, she at least decided not to say anything. She just brought her notes back out and placed them on her lap so that Ruby could read them. "It's... not phrased very well in the book," she said, frowning. "What it means is that you need a certain amount of energy to start a reaction. Think of it like a boulder balanced on the top of a hill..."

Twenty minutes later, Pyrrha closed the book and smiled. Ruby couldn't meet her eyes, but she made sure to say thank you—maybe too many times, come to think of it. Once she'd retreated to her own bed to tinker with Crescent Rose, she looked up briefly and saw that Ren had opened his eyes again. It occurred to her that he must have noticed Pyrrha helping her. He smiled and she looked away, feeling a lot younger than fifteen.

* * *

Jaune gave up and stuffed his textbook under his bed—still only about halfway done with the first chapter. Part of that was because it was incredibly dense and, as far as he could tell, assumed he'd been in combat school for several years instead of zero. The other part was that his teammates just wouldn't _shut up._ The three of them had been sniping at each other on and off since class had ended. And during class, sometimes—professor Oobleck had told them off twice and threatened to send them outside if they didn't stop.

He wasn't even totally sure what the argument was _about,_ just now. It had started after their humiliating defeat in sparring, and just... kept going, evolving as it went. They'd gone through their (really not flattering) opinions on each others' fighting styles, some (extremely offensive) comments about one another's ancestry, and even a (not so subtle) hint here or there that the whole thing would've gone better if certain people hadn't been there. Which, Jaune had to admit, might be kind of true in Cardin's case.

If it hadn't already been past curfew—which was eight o'clock, it turned out—he would've just left the dorm. They'd gone their separate ways for a while after classes ended, with Cardin setting himself up in the dorm and the rest of them deciding that they really wanted to be elsewhere. Jaune had hung around in the courtyard, been momentarily distracted by a loud crash and gone to investigate. Before he could, Goodwitch had stopped him told him very firmly that it was time for all students to be in their rooms. This had been at seven-thirty, but the look on her face made it seem like a bad idea to argue the point.

Now ABSW were stuck in the same room together, and he was _not_ feeling the love and team camaraderie. He didn't think he'd make it through the reading by Monday. Only about one word in four made any sense to him, and the diagrams were more confusing than anything. Looking for help from his team definitely wasn't an option, and it was way too late to bother Ruby about it. Maybe he could ask her at breakfast tomorrow?

_No._ If he was going to make it in Beacon, _especially_ as a leader, he was going to have to be able to handle the work on his own. He was sick of being the useless idiot, sick of his teammates constantly bickering, sick of _everything,_ really. And it was only the second day.

"You _obviously_ don't know what you're talking about," Weiss snapped. He turned around, wincing when he realized that she was still working on the homework. The homework that he should _definitely_ be doing right now—but Weiss... wasn't? He'd looked over there a while ago, and he was pretty sure she was still looking at the same diagram. He knew better than to say anything, though, lest he get drawn into the argument.

Blake was giving her partner the kind of look Jaune would really only use if he accidentally stepped on a slug. There was a book open in her lap, though he'd only noticed her turning the page once or twice in the past hour. "Right, my mistake. I guess the press, their employees, and every single faunus on Remnant are just... what? Whining about nothing?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Cardin butted in.

"Guys," Jaune said, rubbing at his temple. "It's late."

"What do you know, he can read a clock," Weiss retorted.

"You sure?" Cardin sneered at him. "Maybe I'll ask again, just to check."

"Like _you_ could even tell the difference between a clock and a toaster."

Jaune groaned. "Just... can we all agree to hold this stuff until tomorrow?"

"No!" Weiss and Cardin snapped, at almost the same time. Blake didn't respond, but the way she was glaring at the other two spoke volumes.

Something snapped.

"Look," Jaune said, raising his voice for the first time since he'd come to Beacon (panicked screaming notwithstanding). "We can't keep doing this every night, okay? I'm tired. _You're_ tired. So, new rule—we stay _absolutely silent_ after curfew."

He stood there, breathing hard, looking from Weiss to Blake to Cardin and back again. _This is it,_ he thought. _This is when they laugh, and any authority I still had is gone forever._

Cardin snorted. "Aw, I think we hurt his—"

"Fine." It was Weiss who cut in, her gaze flicking down to the textbook in her lap as she spoke. Blake, too, nodded agreement. She didn't say a word, which might have been her way of following the order. Jaune tried not to gape.

"What, seriously? You're just gonna roll over because he talked louder?" Cardin sneered at... well, everyone in the room. Weiss opened her mouth to snap at him, and Jaune could almost _feel_ the whole thing about to crash down around his ears, but before she could speak Blake shushed him. Like they were in a library.

Cardin stared at her, then guffawed. "Really? I can't even—"

_"Shh!"_ Jaune and Weiss got in on it this time, and for a second it looked like a vein or something would pop and Cardin would just keel over. Instead he snarled wordlessly at them and stomped out of the room, making sure to slam the door behind him.

"Would you people please _shut the fuck up?!"_ shouted someone in the room next to theirs. Jaune winced.

And then, silence descended. Jaune sat back down on his bed, feeling... dizzy. Maybe a bit giddy. He'd actually _done_ it! He'd told them to do something, and they'd listened!

...Well, two-thirds of them had, but still!


	7. First Impressions [4]

"You _didn't."_

"I really, really wish I was joking," Dove groaned. Jaune was staring at him, mouth open. Then he turned to look at Yang, Nora, and Russel in turn. The three of them were grinning—their leader definitely wasn't.

"So... you rode it."

"Yes."

"Stole an airship."

"Borrowed!" Russel corrected him.

"Crashed it into the Grimm."

"Yep."

"...And they just gave you detention?!" Nora nodded vigorously.

"That, and I'm pretty sure Goodwitch hates our guts," Russel added, "but between Yang and Nora that was bound to happen at some point."

"Hey!" Yang protested. Nora kept nodding.

"Honestly?" Jaune sighed and poked at his scrambled eggs. "I _wish_ my team was running around blowing things up and getting into trouble together."

"We didn't blow anything up!" Dove insisted.

_"Yet."_

"What was that, Russel?"

"Nothing, boss-man sir!"

"Is your team still being all..." Ruby trailed off, then made a vague gesture with one hand.

"Yeah, but I think I made a breakthrough last night."

"Awesome! What happened?" He couldn't help but grin at her enthusiasm. Secretly, he was kind of glad she'd blown up Weiss the day they'd arrived—otherwise they wouldn't have met before initiation, and he honestly had _no idea_ what he would've done if he'd had only his teammates to turn to as friends. This way, he could at least hang out with BRYN and RSPR while they were being... _them._

"I got sick of them yelling at each other in the middle of the night, so I set a rule where we're not allowed to talk after curfew," Jaune explained.

"And... they agreed to that?" she asked, wide-eyed.

Jaune nodded. "I thought they were gonna ignore me, but... yeah. We can sleep and do homework, now!"

"Never thought I'd see someone be glad about that," Yang chuckled.

"The bar's pretty low."

"Any progress on the whole... them hating each other thing?"

Shrugging, Jaune returned to picking at his food with a fork. "Not really. I just... I don't know what to do about that." He turned to give Ruby and Dove pleading looks. "Do you guys have any ideas? I'll take anything, at this point."

"To be honest," Dove said dryly, "Most of my leadership strategy is remembering to wear a parachute."

"Aw, you know you love us!" Yang slung an arm around his shoulders, prompting him to kick her under the table and scoot a foot or so further down the bench.

"I guess I could look on the bright side," Jaune mused. "None of my teammates have pushed me off a cliff."

"We didn't push him!"

"That's _exactly_ what you did, Yang!"

Ruby threw a blueberry, which bounced off her sister's nose. "Guys! Focus! Jaune needs serious help here." Jaune ducked his head, turning his attention back to his breakfast. He couldn't help thinking of how much she'd been holding back while sparring with him.

"Hey, don't look at me! If I were leader of that team, I'd probably have punched them all out by now."

"...I'm pretty sure that would end with me in the infirmary," Jaune pointed out.

Pyrrha frowned thoughtfully. "Ruby, you ran into Weiss on your first day, didn't you? Maybe there's some tricks to dealing with her?"

Ruby let her head fall to the table with a thump. "I ran into her. _Literally._ And then I sneezed and the Dust she was carrying blew up."

There was a long silence at the table.

"Okay, so tell us what you did," Russel suggested, "and then Jaune can do the exact opposite of that." Yang smacked him hard on the arm. _"Ow!"_

"Oh, I talked to Blake, too! And that wasn't a total disaster!"

Jaune perked up a little. "Any tips? She's... a little less prickly than the other two, but I can't figure out how to talk to her."

"She likes books," Ruby replied, frowning thoughtfully. "That was all we really talked about. Oh! That, and she seemed kind of... pessimistic, I guess."

"Great." Jaune had already known both of those things—he'd seen her buried in a book more than once, and a lot of her sarcastic comments were pretty cynical.

Then, Ruby sat up a little straighter, as if struck by a thought. "Where are they, anyway?"

"Huh?"

"I mean... Cardin's over there." She pointed across the cafeteria to where Jaune's partner—unfortunately—was sitting at another table with a team of older boys. "But Blake and Weiss aren't here, so... where do they eat?"

"The library."

Jaune snapped his head around to look at Dove. So did everyone else.

"Uh, how do you know that?" asked Russel.

"I go there to study," the other boy answered, "when one of you is being loud. So, always."

"Heh..."

"Not sure about Blake, but Weiss had her lunch there yesterday."

Jaune frowned. He'd known they were avoiding the cafeteria, but... well... he supposed he'd never thought about where else they'd be able to go. "Did she say anything?" he asked.

"She came up to me and asked to borrow my textbook. Hers had a page missing."

"Why go to you for that, though?" Yang asked. "Did you know her before Beacon or something?"

"No. But who else would she ask?"

There was a small lull in the conversation, before it turned back towards other subjects—school, their professors, and the epic wrath of Glynda Goodwitch. Jaune didn't join in. He was still mulling over Dove's words, so deep in thought that he jumped when Pyrrha told him breakfast was over. His plate had barely been touched.

* * *

_"Why?"_ Yang groaned, like a lost soul howling out of the depths of hell.

"Do you want the short version, or the one that includes citations from medical journals about how important the spine is and the running total of how many times we almost broke ours?" Dove asked, narrowing his eyes at Yang over the cover of his textbook.

"But it was fun!" Nora protested. "This is... this is _torture."_

"A cruel and unusual punishment!" added Yang.

Russel put his hand on his forehead and wailed, "The horror of it all!"

Dove kept glaring, making Nora fidget in her seat. He looked a tiny bit like Ren when he did that, which made her wonder if he was some kind of long-lost doppleganger. Not Ren 2.0, because that would imply he was _better,_ which he wasn't. Unless you counted being better at being a wet blanket. It occurred to her that maybe _her_ Ren was the Ren 2.0, and she'd only just now met the original, inferior Ren that he'd been based on.

...Nah. Then her Ren would have to be renamed something like Dove 2.0, and that would just be awful.

"Nora."

Her head snapped up, and she found that her partner was looking at her. "Uh-huh?"

"Essay." He tapped the book in front of her.

"Ugh, this is the _worst!"_ She shoved her book away. Dove pushed it back. "See? It's chasing me! _Just like a Grimm."_

"It's only an essay," Dove said, as if that was in any way relevant. Of course it was an essay—that was why it was _the worst._ Plus it was on safety, which had to be the most boring of all the topics. At least it was Professor Port supervising them rather than Goodwitch, so they could talk instead of just writing the whole time.

"You know, I expected Beacon detentions to be more hands-on than this," Russel mused.

Nora perked up. "Totally! They should be, like, making us wander around in some forbidden forest looking for a monster!"

"That's what we're in trouble for in the first place," Dove pointed out.

She stuck her tongue out at him. He rolled his eyes—at least, she was pretty sure he had. It was hard to see them, what with how he always kept them almost closed. She was glad Ren didn't do that—it would be a total shame to hide a color like that all the time.

"What color are your eyes?" she asked, poking Dove in the arm. He gave her a funny look.

"...Why?"

"'Cause. I can't be your super awesome main-kick if I don't even know your eye color."

Russel chuckled. "Main-kick?"

"Well, obviously _I'm_ not the side-kick."

"Point."

"And you two are more like partners-in-crime, you know? You're fun."

"If you really want to know," Dove said, "They're brown."

"Aw..."

"Wha—hey!" Russel pointed to his own brown eye. "Not cool."

"Well _you_ don't need to have pink ones," Nora explained, "But if I'm going to have a sort-of backup partner, he should really get with the program."

"I'm not getting colored contacts."

"Who said anything about contacts?!" Nora leaned forward, poking him hard in the chest. "Are you planning something? 'Cause I'll have you know, impersonating Ren isn't going to work. We have passwords."

Dove raised an eyebrow. He looked almost as unimpressed as Ren did, sometimes—he was _totally_ going to try to knock him out and take his place one day. But Nora would be ready.

"Why on _Remnant,"_ he asked, very slowly, "Would I want to do that? And besides, we have completely different body types."

"And don't you forget it!" Nora declared, then turned back to her essay. There was about half a sentence scrawled near the top, which she figured was probably enough for now. They were here for two whole hours, after all. Every Saturday. For two _whole months._ Goodwitch had been really, really mad.

To distract herself—and also Dove—she turned to Russel. "How'd you know how to do that, anyway?"

"Huh?"

"The airship, dork," Yang laughed, punching him in the arm.

_"Ow._ Like I said, my dad taught me a little when I was twelve."

"Ooh, was he a pilot? Was he a _fighter pilot?_ I heard there's a kind of airship in Atlas that has a spear on the nose, so they can fly it into really big Grimm—and _that's_ how you knew how to aim it so well!" Nora had to clench both fists to keep herself from leaping to her feet.

Russel blinked at her a few times. "Uh, not exactly. He was a pilot for a little while, but it was just shuttling people around Vale. Like a fancy bus driver. He showed me how to steer."

"I notice you _haven't_ mentioned him teaching you to take off," Dove grumbled. "Or land."

"I did fine, didn't I?!"

"You were awesome!" Nora stopped trying to stay in her seat and popped up, accidentally knocking the mostly-blank essay to the ground. "Best pilot ever!"

"Agreed," Yang added, "But I wanna know how you started it. That seems like a handy trick."

"Please don't," Dove let his head fall onto his textbook with a thud. Nora wondered why he kept hitting his head on things like that—he didn't seem to have a hard enough skull to get away with it.

"Uh..." Russel shifted uncomfortably. Nora's heart leapt—was this it?! Was he going to reveal his secret double-life as a daring airship thief? Or maybe he didn't just steal them... he _raced_ them! In the skies above Vale! And hooked up a ton of lightning Dust to the engine to make them go even faster, and he would have all these intrigues with the other racers and secret rivalries and—

"I stole a car," he admitted, pitching his voice lower so that Port wouldn't overhear. "Just once! Uh, don't tell anyone? I mean, I never got caught and it'd be really hard to prove at this point, but still."

"But... why?" Yang asked, and Nora leaned forward to listen.

"Joyride?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "I was... kind of a delinquent when I was younger. Stopped most of that stuff when I decided to come to Beacon."

Nora narrowed her eyes. He was _lying._ He always did that weird neck-rub thing when he fibbed about something—she'd seen it this morning when he'd told Oobleck he'd done the reading. Then again... why lie about stealing a car for fun? She and Ren had stolen stuff plenty of times, back when they'd only just met, but that was always food. It seemed kinda scummy to take stuff just because, and not because you needed it.

Hm... Russel could keep his secret, for now. Mostly because they only had an hour left and Nora should probably start writing, but also privacy or whatever.

* * *

Sky lay on his bed with arms and legs splayed, his head tilted all the way back to stare at the ceiling. His feet were bare, and the room was just cold enough that his toes were slowly going numb. He didn't move to cover himself with his blanket.

As of right now, he had been in two spars in Beacon. One had been against a rival team, YRON, that he'd never actually interacted with before, and in the other he and Ren had gone up against Dove and Nora alone. It had not been fun. Not even a little. Sure, Goodwitch had said that even if they'd eventually lost, they'd put up a good fight and it was nothing to worry about. That didn't mean that it hadn't been one of the most terrifying experiences of his life—because Nora didn't want to hit Ren with her grenades. So, being the only other target, Sky had spent the entire fight screaming and dodging and getting thrown halfway across the arena. She'd still attacked Ren, too, but not _nearly_ as much or as... enthusiastically.

In both fights, he'd been eliminated first. Actually, he was the only casualty of their team battle. Ruby and Pyrrha had beaten an entire other team by themselves. Sky honestly couldn't even fathom that. He could barely follow fighters as fast as his teammates. People like Cardin who put all their focus on strength would struggle to hit someone agile, like Russel, but Sky couldn't even dodge well-choreographed attacks. He was, in short, useless against quick, dodgy opponents, useless against big, strong, tanky opponents, and really just useless all round.

Heaving a sigh, he sat up and looked around. Ruby was scribbling busily in the corner. Ren and Pyrrha were nowhere to be seen—he knew Pyrrha had gone off to one of the training rooms, because she had told him so. He guessed Ren was probably with BRYN, because he always was. His partner was really in name only, if he thought about it. He tried not to.

Sky flopped back onto his bed, turned over and buried his face in his pillow. _Stupid combat schools,_ he thought, _putting combat in their curriculum._ He'd never been any good at sparring, so he wasn't sure why he was even surprised.

An odd noise broke into his thoughts. When he turned his head to look, he found that Ruby was tapping her pencil on the textbook in her lap. The rhythm was odd, sort of syncopated, and Sky drummed along almost absentmindedly. Her pencil went still.

"Oh, it's okay!" he blurted out. "I don't mind."

"Um..."

Dead silence. _Great._ "I just meant... uh... tapping doesn't bother me. I do it too." Not when he was reading, but often when he was anxious about something. He frowned, looking at the pile of papers in front of her. She was taking notes, scrawling hastily in the margins as she read through her book. There were a _lot_ of notes, too.

She turned a page, and he heard her make a tiny, dismayed sort of noise in the back of her throat. He was pretty sure he knew what page she was on, now—he _liked_ chemistry, but he'd still quailed a little at the sight of an entire page devoted to a table of Dust varieties, from the commonplace to the esoteric, and how to calculate the intensity of their effects if mixed together.

"We don't have to know all of it," he said. "Well, Oobleck says we do, but I talked to one of the older students and she said we only need the basics. Fire, Lightning, the core types."

Ruby slumped in relief until her forehead was pressed to the page. "Oh my god."

Sky laughed. "I know."

"Just... _look at it."_

"Yep."

There was another long silence, while Sky cast about for something to say—or, failing that, something else to do besides watch his teammate study. Then he noticed that she was still tapping the pencil, this time on a blanket where it wouldn't make as much noise.

He squinted towards the notebook she was writing in. Her scribbles took up a full page, all for one chapter. "Do... you need any help?" he asked.

She looked up, flushed. "What? Nope. I'm totally fine, just need to... um... let it sink in?"

Sky's eyebrows rose before he could help himself, and she turned hurriedly back to the textbook. He couldn't quite parse why she'd reacted like that. It was an honest offer, and... now that he thought about it, two years was a _lot_ of theory to skip.

"Uh, Ruby?" he asked. "Did you ever learn what a logarithm is?" The tips of her ears went red.

She folded her arms and avoided eye contact. "I'm fine!"

Sky bit his lip, hesitating. Then, tentatively, "How about... we trade."

"Huh?" At least she was looking at him, now. He shifted nervously from foot to foot.

"Well... I figured I could help you with some of the theory stuff, since I'm guessing you skipped a lot of it coming here this early." When her face fell, he hurried to add, "and maybe... uh... you could teach me how to be a little less useless at sparring?"

Ruby stared at him, eyes wide. He started to panic. "I mean, not that... uh, I could help anyway, I get if you don't want to waste time! But I figured this way we could both feel like things were even, you know, and uh..." She giggled. He wondered if there was a hole anywhere in the dorm he could disappear into.

"It's fine! It's just... you're not useless, y'know." Sky blinked.

"I mean, that's nice of you to say—"

Ruby rolled her eyes at him. He was actually speechless for a moment, unsure how to feel about the fact that even she thought he was being awkward and embarrassing. Then, "I mean it! You figured out how to kill the porcupine thingy, right?"

"Razorpine..."

"Yeah, that. See? We wouldn't have been able to beat it without you."

"That's not really combat, though," he pointed out.

"Is too!"

"It's kind of related, I guess, but you did all the strategizing and if _I'd_ been the one shooting at it we all would have died, and—"

"Is too!" Ruby stuck her tongue out at him for good measure.

"...Fine. Agree to disagree." Sky hesitated, then stuck out a hand. "Do we have a deal?"

Ruby shook it. "Yep!" Then she narrowed her eyes and poked him in the shoulder. "But you're still not useless."

He grinned sheepishly. "Let me prove it, then?" he asked, pointing at the textbook. Ruby hesitated.

"Um... Can we start with the sparring part? I think I'm going to do something... like, Brine level destructive if I have to look at this any longer."

Sky frowned. "I'm not sure how to feel about this."

"Huh?"

"Well, you _are_ about to beat me up. So..."

"I am not!" She hopped to her feet and picked up her scythe, which kind of undermined her protest.

They ended up in the courtyard—it was mostly deserted, now that it was after seven. Sky made a mental note to keep careful track of the time and make sure they were back before curfew, since... well, Goodwitch was _scary._ He suspected the existence of team BRYN didn't help her blood pressure that much. Or ABSW, for that matter.

"Okay!" Ruby declared, extending the blade of her weapon with a long, dry scraping of metal on metal. It wasn't loud, or unpleasant—he'd seen her oiling the hinges with the kind of gentleness he usually associated with parents and children. It _was_ ominous. Very ominous. Sky raised his halberd, hoping the inevitable bruises would fade quickly.

Ruby stared at him for a moment. "Um, okay," she said, lowering her weapon and walking over to him. "First thing's first, don't hold it so low." She adjusted his hands until he was holding his axe closer to the middle. "It's hard to spin these babies around to block attacks, so you gotta use the handle for that sometimes."

He nodded, realizing with a start that their weapons _were_ actually pretty similar. That would've been a stroke of brilliance on his part, what with asking her to train him and all, if he'd thought of it before she pointed it out to him.

His team leader strolled back to where she'd been standing before, around ten feet away. "So! I'm thinking... no semblances, and I can go a little slower to start."

Sky nodded. His pride smarted a little at that last bit, but he forced it down. If he'd wanted to do what he was good at, he would've gone to a normal academy. This was a _combat_ school, so he had to learn combat. The Grimm could do a lot worse than just embarrass him.

"Ready!" he called out, even though he wasn't. Ruby darted forward—she'd probably go high, he thought, since her weapon was heavy and would gain momentum from gravity. He hesitated, trying to work out what angle she'd be least able to defend while striking overhand, and lashed out at her stomach. Her blade spun, knocking his halberd sideways and leaving him wide open. In a blink, the edge of the scythe was at his throat.

"That was really good!"

Sky raised an eyebrow. "Uh _huh."_

"It _was!_ Look, your problem isn't that you're bad at fighting."

"...Really?"

"Nope!" She grinned, then swung at him. He yelped and shoved the axe at her, only for it to bounce off her scythe and hit him on the forehead. "It's that you're thinking too much. Um, that and you need to do a bunch of practice with different attacks and blocks—you know them, it's just that... um, what my Uncle always told me is that you don't _really_ know them until you start doing them in your sleep and falling out of bed."

"Thinking too much?"

She nodded. "Yep. You do this thing where you look at what I'm doing, where Crescent Rose is, and all this other stuff... and that's usually when I hit you."

"Right." He paused, cocked his head. "How do I... not do that?"

"Um..." Her face lit up. "Ooh! I have an idea!"

She stepped back, taking up a ready position. Sky braced himself. Then she was gone, and a blur of red was rushing towards him. He yelped, flailed, took the first and second hits on his shoulder and gauntlet, and then got knocked onto his butt by the third.

"Ow..."

"See!" Ruby hopped up and down, then seemed to realize he was on the ground. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't think—uh, I mean... here." She offered him a hand up, which he accepted gratefully.

"I don't get how that helps," he admitted. "I mean, I just got knocked down."

"Well, yeah. But you weren't overthinking!"

"I didn't block anything."

Ruby planted the butt of her scythe into the ground, making a sharp cracking noise that sounded more like a gunshot than anything else. "Not yet," she said, "but now you know what it feels like to stop trying to puzzle out everything you do in a fight. I mean, you _do_ need to do strategy, and thinking fast is part of that, but you can't plan out everything."

Sky shrugged. "I guess so."

The rest of their training session was mostly her walking him through the more basic attacks and blocks, and then having him repeat them until his arms felt like putty. Eventually, though, Sky took a break from swinging his halberd around and checked his scroll. "...We should probably go. It's almost curfew."

"Aw," Ruby pouted. "Five more minutes?"

"Goodwitch."

"Oh. Yeah, let's go back inside."

"And now," Sky said, wiggling his fingers menacingly, "we go back to those books."

Ruby cringed away from him. "No!" she wailed, then took of sprinting for the room. Sky laughed and followed her, feeling indescribably relieved when she let him catch up instead of using her semblance.

This? This felt like finally making his first friend at Beacon.


	8. First Impressions [5]

Ren awoke to a pattern of feather-light knocks—three, a pause, one more, a pause, three, a pause... He stood up with hardly a sound, letting the sheets pool on his mattress and crossing the room barefoot. Slowly, carefully, he eased the door open and peered out into the hallway.

His best friend stared back at him. Her face was in shadow, her hair mussed, but her eyes were bright and alert. "What is it?" he whispered.

She stared back at him, then dropped her eyes. "I couldn't sleep." It was the quietest he'd heard her speak in a long time. He stepped aside to let her into the dorm, putting a finger to his lips as she passed him.

_Gotcha,_ she mouthed.

They sat next to one another on his bed, and for a while they were both silent. Ren loved spending time with Nora—she was his best friend, after all—but she wasn't exactly the quiet type. Moments like this were so rare he could count them on one hand. He breathed in and out, savoring the stillness between them, his eyes fluttering closed. Her head leaned against his shoulder, a familiar weight.

"Ren?" she whispered, after a long pause. He opened his eyes again and turned to look at her. "Do you like it here?"

His eyebrows furrowed. "Would you rather we left?"

Nora shook her head. "No. I wanted to know, that's all."

Ren nodded. "I do like it here."

"Even if we're on different teams?"

He took a moment to consider the question—and to choose his words carefully. "I think it will be good for us to meet new people."

"But..."

Ren held up a hand. "We're a pair," he said, looking her dead in the eye. It wasn't an opinion, or even a promise—it was a simple statement of fact. "That won't change. Not ever."

Nora smiled and hugged him. He laid a hand on her back, and silence descended. The breathing of his teammates made a soft, gentle sort of background, and he could feel his friend's heartbeat. His eyelids drifted halfway shut.

They stayed like that a long time—longer than Nora had ever been quiet and still before. He suspected it was because they both knew that when the spell was broken, they'd have to go their separate ways again. Then, as Ren was beginning to wonder just what time it was, Nora spoke again.

"Ren?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I stay here?"

He nodded, getting to his feet again. "I'll take the floor."

"But—" she stopped herself, then winced when Sky twitched and mumbled something into his pillow. Too loud.

Ren put a hand on her shoulder before she could protest properly. "Next time, we can swap."

Her eyes widened in comprehension. Then she beamed at him and passed down his blanket and pillow. He tried to give them back, but she wasn't having it. She curled up, then let one hand poke out over the edge of the bed and hang down in front of his nose.

"Boop!" she whispered.

When Ren woke for the second time, it was to a strangled yelp and a _thump._ He opened his eyes and sat up, only to find Sky sprawled on the floor in the middle of the room.

"Are you alright?" he asked mildly.

"When did she come in?!" Sky demanded, staring up at Nora.

She grinned. "I was sneaky!"

"You... but... what?"

"We didn't want to wake you," Ren explained, "but... we're used to spending time together."

Judging by the way Sky and a barely-awake Pyrrha both went bright red, something about that statement had been misinterpreted. Ren coughed. "We talked for a while, that's all."

Ruby stretched, yawned, and shrugged. "I mean, if none of us noticed I guess it's not that big of a deal."

"Yes!" Nora jumped to her feet, triumphant.

Ren took in the panicked look on Sky's face and winced. "That said... we should probably try not to do this too often. And perhaps give some warning beforehand." Sky and Pyrrha both nodded frantically. Ruby, who still seemed mostly asleep, mumbled an affirmative.

"Aw." Nora pouted at him. Ren stared back, waiting. Eventually her shoulders slumped, and she nodded.

Ren smiled. "I look forward to next time." Then he paused, as realization struck him. "On another note... do your teammates know you're here?"

_"Nora?!"_ shouted a voice from across the hall. It sounded like it was probably Dove. Ren thought back to the early days of his friendship with Nora, when he hadn't been quite so familiar with how she operated, and imagined waking up with her nowhere to be found. It was a chilling thought.

"In here!" she called back, still cheerful.

Dove pounded on the door. Sky pulled it open and then leapt clear, hiding behind Ruby as the leader of team BRYN entered the room. Yang and Russel were both in the hallway, peering anxiously over their teammate's shoulders.

"Hiya!" Nora greeted him. At the sight of her—unharmed, and nowhere near any volatile substances—he relaxed.

"Where have you been?" he asked, sounding for all the world like a frustrated parent. Ren knew the feeling.

"Here!"

There was a long, shocked paused. Ren pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nora wanted to talk for a while," he said, forestalling any embarrassing questions. "I slept on the floor."

Dove stared at them a moment, as if trying to work out a complex problem. Then he shook his head. "I'm... not going to ask. Just _warn_ us next time, Nora. We thought you'd... I don't know, run off to do something incredibly dangerous. Again."

"Hey!" Nora poked him in the chest, eyes narrowed. "I never wander away from this team to do dangerous things! I bring it _with_ me!"

Russel snorted, then broke out into helpless laughter. Yang wasn't far behind. Ren wondered briefly if this whole 'making new friends' business was perhaps more dangerous than he'd thought.

"You certainly do, Nora." Dove sighed. "We're going to be expelled by our second year. You guys know that, right?"

"Nah, we'll be fine!" Russel assured him, giving him a pat on the back. "Ozpin loves crazy shenanigans."

"Yep!" Ruby added, from somewhere behind Ren. "That's how I got in early!"

"Goodwitch will just have to put up with the headache," Yang agreed.

Dove grumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like _so will I,_ then walked out of the room. His team followed him, though Nora paused to give Ren a quick hug and an excited, "See you at breakfast!" before leaving. He smiled after her.

"So." Ren looked around, and was surprised to find Sky talking to him. He hummed an acknowledgment. "Um... are you two a thing?"

Ren blinked. "Ah. No, we are not. Not in that sense." It wasn't the first time he'd been asked that question. He very much doubted it would be the last.

Sky opened his mouth, as if to say something else, then stopped. "How did you two meet?" he asked instead.

"At a point in time when we were both very much alone," Ren replied. "After that... we weren't anymore."

"...Right."

"Why do you ask?"

Sky fidgeted a moment. Then he looked at his shoes and said, "I... um, thought it might be good to talk. You know, if we're going to be p—ah, working together in class."

Ren frowned. "That makes sense. We are partners now, after all." Sky's head jerked up, his eyes going wide.

"Uh, we are? I mean, right!"

This was... not ideal. Ren cleared his throat. "I know it may be... difficult, considering how close Nora and I are. I'm not looking to replace that bond, but I think it would be good for both of us to make new friends. She gets along well with Brine—" maybe a little too well, all things considered— "and I would like to do the same with you, Ruby, and Pyrrha." He stopped, hoping he hadn't sounded too stiff.

Sky blinked a few times, as though he was still trying to parse what he'd just been told. "Oh," he managed, after a moment. Then he grinned. "I guess we should... do stuff later? Er, I don't really know what you like to do in your free time. But we could. Um."

"I enjoy reading. Meditation. Sometimes going on walks is nice."

"So... quiet, peaceful type things." Sky nodded. "I'd be up for reading, if you wanted to hang around in the library a while."

He nodded, smiling. Sky started hopping in place, a look of triumph on his face, then stood ramrod straight and coughed into his hand in an attempt to save what was left of his dignity. Ren decided to throw him a lifeline.

"Shall we go to breakfast, then?" he suggested. His partner nodded and dashed out the door, ears reddening.

* * *

Jaune reached out. Hesitated. His hand balled into a fist, his teeth clenched. This was it. He was going to do it. He pushed his hand forward, slowly... slowly... stopped. His knuckles rested on the surface of Professor Goodwitch's office door without making a sound.

Just like that, the door opened. He yelped, stepped backwards, and then tripped over his own shoelaces and nearly fell over. Goodwitch was standing in the doorway, eyebrow raised.

"Mr. Arc," she greeted him. "I was just about to leave for lunch."

He shut his mouth so he wouldn't make any pathetic whimpering noises, then gathered his courage. "I... um... had a question."

"Yes?"

Jaune hesitated. Her eyes narrowed. "Um..."

"Contrary to popular belief," she said acidly, "I _do_ need to eat, Mr. Arc."

"Right!" He shifted from foot to foot, then blurted, "Can you change my team?" And _oh god,_ that was _not_ the speech he'd practiced this morning!

Instead of smiting him, Goodwitch's gaze softened. She sighed, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I'm afraid not, Mr. Arc," she answered. "The rest of your classmates have already been given their teams—it would be unfair to them to break them up at this stage."

He imagined splitting apart BRYN or RSPR, forcing one of those partner pairs to deal with him and Cardin, and cringed. Then he looked up, pleading. "But... you could make someone else leader, right?"

She shook her head. "Leadership assignments are final."

"But—"

"Would you like to discuss this further in my office?" At Jaune's nod, she opened the door and gestured for him to enter. He sat down in front of her desk—well, more like he collapsed into the nearest chair. She seated herself, then regarded him intently.

"My first question, Mr. Arc, is who else could lead your team?"

"Anyone!" He ran a hand through his hair, feeling agitated. "Anyone could do it better than me!"

"I disagree."

He blinked. Twice. "But... I'm not good at being a leader."

She regarded him for a moment, then said, "You're right. You aren't a leader yet."

Jaune hung his head. "I know. That's what I keep saying!"

"I will remind you that Beacon is a _school,_ Mr. Arc. You are here to learn how to lead your team—all our team leaders are."

"But... why?" He was almost shouting now, but he was too frustrated to care. "Why make me a leader, when I can't get my team to cooperate?"

"I repeat: who else on your team could bring the four of you together?" She spread her hands. "You are the only member of Alabaster that is not openly hostile towards the others. Quite frankly, I doubt Ozpin himself could force those three to be friends—but you have proven yourself capable of getting them to cooperate against the Grimm."

Jaune groaned, then flopped forward until his head was in his hands. "But... what do I _do?"_

"You're going to have to be a little more specific than that."

"How do I get them to stop fighting all the time? How to I make sure two people can't wipe the floor with all four of us? How do I _lead_ them when they never _listen?!"_ By the time he finished he was standing, looking down at Goodwitch where she sat behind her desk. He was now mostly sure that the look on her face was pity.

"As I see it, you have two options," she said. He nodded dumbly. "The first is to be strict, but fair. Earn their respect, to the point where they will follow your orders if need be. If you can manage that, you'll be able to function as a team."

Jaune remembered Cardin pushing him over in initiation. Weiss sneering at his appointment as team leader. Blake's frustration as she tried to get him to keep his shield up. "I don't think I can do that," he admitted. "And... I mean, team Brine and team Raspberry are friends..." he trailed off. Tried to imagine his three teammates, sitting together at a table and laughing. Failed.

Goodwitch rubbed at her temples. "That would be your second option. You could try to get to know each of them—learn their side of every conflict, build up some trust. Then, act as a bridge between them."

He frowned thoughtfully. "That... doesn't sound like it would work."

"It would be exceedingly difficult, yes."

"But..." Jaune groaned. "Where do I even start?"

"Don't take sides." The reply was so quick that he did a double-take.

"Huh?"

"When they argue—you must remain neutral whenever possible, regardless of which route you take. You can't bridge the gap between them if you support one of them above the others."

Jaune frowned. "I guess so..."

"Spend time alone with each of them. Try to learn as much as you can about them, and use that to diffuse arguments. After that... you can work out what to do based on their personalities."

He nodded slowly. "I... I think I can do that."

Professor Goodwitch stood up and offered him a rare smile. "Good luck."

"Thank you!" Jaune gushed, scrambling out of his chair and towards the door. "And... um... sorry for interrupting your lunch."

Her eye twitched. "Have you crashed an airship and an Elder Damsel into this school, Mr. Arc?"

"Uh... no?"

"Then, by the standards of this year's class, you have not inconvenienced me."

With that, she stalked off towards the staff room. Jaune was left standing in the hallway, plotting how to approach his teammates. This was _not_ going to be fun...

* * *

"Stupid training."

Yang turned onto her side to watch Nora kicking her feet absently. She was sprawled on her back, glaring at the ceiling with her arms folded. The two of them were alone in the dorm, since the others were in the library studying. Dove would claim this was because he wanted a break from loose cannons and Russel was unfortunately the closest he'd get. The real reason was that, when he'd started chasing the three of them around the dorm, Russel was the one who had been caught and dragged off.

That would have been fine, but RSPR had gone off to the training grounds to practice combination attacks. Ruby loved the things so much she'd started planning them out at the dinner table, which was almost as cute as it was terrifying. As much as she liked a good fight, Yang was _not_ looking forward to having to go toe to toe with her sister and Pyrrha. That was going to _hurt._

Regardless, the result of RSPR going off to train was that Ren went with them. That meant that Nora couldn't kidnap him into BRYN's dorm for a few hours at a whim. And _that_ meant that Nora was bored. Yang was starting to get a little bit nervous.

"They'll be back soon," Yang told her teammate, after a particularly violent kick.

Nora groaned. "But they've been gone for _hours."_

Yamg might've dismissed that as Nora being Nora, but she was still remembering what had happened last night. She'd wandered into RSPR's room to stay with Ren. It reminded her of Ruby doing the same when they were small, so often that she'd started to wake up before her sister had even knocked. It made her wonder.

"You and Ren are really close," she observed.

Nora nodded. "Since pretty much forever."

"How'd you two meet?"

A tiny smile spread across Nora's face. It was almost melancholic, and the expression was so jarring coming from her craziest, most enthusiastic teammate that it took a moment for Yang to even process it. "We almost died together."

Yang had kind of figured that. "And you're used to sleeping in the same room?" Another nod.

She heaved a sigh and sat up, so that she could look Nora in the eye properly. "I get it."

"Ruby?"

"Yep. It's... kind of complicated, but it ended up being just us for a while. Our dad was around, but he wasn't really _around_ until a little later."

Nora huffed out a breath. "I wish we coulda swapped partners."

"I don't."

"Huh?"

Yang shrugged. "It's... I don't know. Ruby has kind of a hard time making friends, sometimes, and I get in the way. Even if I don't mean to. She needs a chance to break out of her shell, and I think I can trust Raspberry to help her do that."

"I guess I do that, too." Nora was looking down, shoulders slumped.

"What—no! That's not what I meant!"

"It's something he said, though. That we should make new friends."

"That isn't what _he_ meant, either."

"But what if it is?"

"It _isn't,"_ Yang insisted. "I mean, I'm glad Ruby has some new friends, but like _hell_ am I gonna give up being her big sister. Pyrrha would have to fight me!"

That got a snicker out of Nora. "Well, now I wanna see that. And I could fight Sky! Wait, no... that'd just be mean." Yang winced—she had to admit, Ren's academy partner wasn't the most intimidating fighter.

They fell silent after that, with Nora still occasionally kicking her legs. Then, finally, "It sucks."

"Huh?" Yang asked.

"This personal growth junk. It sucks."

Yang laughed. "It kinda does."

Another pause. Then, Yang started grinning. She got the sense that Dove would've popped a blood vessel if he'd been able to see it. "Hey, Nora?"

"Yes?" Nora mirrored her expression.

"Let's go do something fun. Take our minds off it, you know."

Twenty minutes later, the two of them were doing their best impression of sneaking through Beacon's hallways. Yang had to admit that stealth wasn't her strong suit. Nora kept breaking out in sinister laughter. The fact that they made it from their dorm room to the ballroom without being noticed was mostly because they didn't happen to pass any teachers. Not that they were technically doing anything wrong by going there, but... well, they were probably acting a little suspicious. And Goodwitch _really_ didn't like them.

Once their destination was in sight, both stopped trying to duck behind one another whenever other students passed them—mostly for fun, though they were getting a lot of weird looks so it probably wasn't helping much. Yang pushed open the door and went inside, finding the room echoingly empty. Nora was right behind her.

"This is kinda boring," she pointed out.

Yang grinned. "I've heard they keep some famous hunters' weapons in a back room somewhere. You know, older models from when they went to school." Nora perked up immediately.

"Awesome! Wait, who told you that?"

"I have my sources."

Nora narrowed her eyes. "What sources?"

"A teacher. Sort of. Do you want to look for them or what?"

They roved around the edges of the room, looking for doors. Yang opened one and was almost knocked flat by a ridiculously impractical number of mops falling out of a small closet all at once. Nora ran into a men's bathroom and had to be dragged back out, though fortunately no one else was in there.

Finally, the pair of them passed over the last section of wall and found another door. It was fairly plain-looking, all things considered. Yang twisted the knob. It was locked—which was reason enough to really, _really_ want to see what was inside. She paused, considering. Maybe Russel knew how to pick locks? That seemed like the sort of random skill someone would pick up, being a juvenile delinquent. If nothing else, it was probably easier than hot-wiring cars.

Nora made that entire train of thought completely irrelevant by backing up a few paces, then rushing forward and smashing shoulder-first into the door. Yang probably would've tried to stop her, but by the time she realized what was going on, the whole thing had split almost in half and gone flying backwards into the room. It then collided with the legs of a small desk covered in holographic monitors—the school security system, as far as Yang could tell from the brief glimpse she got before they all came tumbling down with a horrible, ear-splitting series of crashes.

"Whoops," Nora blurted, staring at the carnage. Yang wasn't sure what she'd _expected_ to happen. Door versus huntress-in-training with aura usually didn't go that well for the door. Or the room the door lead to.

All that was put on hold when the noise of falling surveillance equipment stopped. In the ensuing silence, Yang could clearly hear footsteps. Approaching footsteps. "Crap!" she yelped, grabbing Nora by the arm and rushing for the exit. They bolted back out into the hallway, turned, then skidded to a halt directly in front of Professor Port.

"Aha!" he declared.

Yang yelped and jumped back. "Uh... we can explain?"

"I believe I saw you in detention just yesterday." She winced, then nodded. Port smiled.

"Well, keep on the straight and narrow, girls!" With that, he walked right past them and into the ballroom—stopping only to tip them a wink.

Yang stared after him for a long moment, dumbstruck. Then she turned to Nora. "So, did he just catch us, or...?"

Nora shrugged.

"...Let's not tell Dove about this."


	9. First Impressions [6]

This was it. Time to do it. Although... maybe it would be better to wait until after dinner?

Jaune shook his head and grit his teeth. No. No more procrastinating! He was going to talk to his teammates, and he was going to _make_ them stop arguing! Heck, he'd handcuff them together and toss them into the Emerald Forest if he had to!

Right. He would start small, and ramp up the difficulty as he went. That meant talking to Cardin last, and Blake first. To do that, he'd have to _find_ her, which was a bit intimidating in and of itself. She still slipped out of the dorm in the middle of the night, sometimes, and he had no idea where she went. So, what did he know about her?

...She liked books? Library it was, then.

After wandering through the hallways for a while (he still got lost pretty much all the time, Beacon was like a freaking maze), Jaune eventually located the library and stuck his head through the door. He'd been inside only once so far, since the fact that Blake and Weiss tended to hang out there meant that he avoided it like the plague. That was a shame, really, because the place was gorgeous. A high ceiling, lots of windows letting the light stream through them—and Weiss sitting in a corner, writing. She was pressing pen to paper a lot harder than Jaune thought was necessary. He briefly considered going over to talk to her, but...

Her scroll buzzed, and she jerked upright and started towards the door. Jaune backed away and ducked down the nearest hallway until she'd stomped by, scroll still vibrating, muttering darkly under her breath. She'd... probably be feeling calmer later, right? Right...

Regardless, if Weiss had been in the library it meant that Blake definitely wasn't. That left him with... nothing even remotely resembling a clue where she might be. Great. Jaune heaved a sigh and started walking down the corridor he'd hidden in, turning his head back and forth. Beacon wasn't _that_ big, right?

Nearly an hour later, Jaune was pretty sure that he'd searched the entire school without any luck. Was Blake in another team's dorm? Cardin was probably close enough to that one third-year group to do that, but he'd never seen her talk to anyone other than ABSW.

He was stopped from pacing down yet another deserted hallway when he saw another student, an older guy he didn't know, pushing through a door and out into the autumn air. Jaune stopped, staring. How many times had he gone over _every single hallway_ without once considering that maybe the moody girl who wanted to be alone would go _outside?_

Groaning, he followed the other student out into the courtyard, looking around as he walked. It took a moment for him to loop back around to a slightly less populated part of the grounds, and from there it was easy to spot Blake. She was sitting against a tree a few hundred yards from Beacon proper, with a book propped in her lap. Jaune felt himself sag in relief and started jogging towards her.

She looked up as he approached, and it occurred to him very suddenly and with about the same force as a sledgehammer that he'd been too busy looking for her to try and plan what he would actually _say._ Swallowing nervously, he walked up to her and sat down on her left. She regarded him with narrowed eyes, obviously annoyed. Probably because he'd just interrupted her.

"Uh, hi?" Jaune tried.

"What do you want?"

_Okay, not the best start..._ "I, uh... I thought we could maybe talk?"

She rolled her eyes and turned back to her book. "Look, I'd really rather not—"

"Just!" Jaune blurted, then winced. "Just let me finish?"

"...Fine."

"I know I'm not the best leader or anything. And I know our team doesn't mesh. Like, not even a little."

"There's a reason for that."

"Yeah." Jaune had a feeling that the two of them were thinking of different reasons. "But... I guess I was hoping that, even if we can't get along as a team... it'd be nice to get along as teammates? You and me, I mean."

Blake raised a single eyebrow. It occurred to Jaune that she and Weiss had very similar unimpressed looks—though he probably shouldn't say that out loud. "Right."

Jaune ruffled a hand through his hair and sighed. "Yeah, I know, but... look, we're not just here to throw ourselves at Grimm all the time, right? We're also here to make friends."

"Maybe you are."

"Of course I am!" Jaune grinned, then let the expression die when she kept giving him that same level stare. "It wasn't my _only_ reason for coming to Beacon, but I think it's a good one."

"We're here to learn to be hunters." Blake flipped a page in her book—obviously, he didn't have her full attention. "To do some good. That's all I care about."

Brick wall. She was a human _brick wall._ Jaune tried another awkward grin and said, "That and reading, right?"

She glared at him.

"I mean, it's good to have a hobby! I guess that's what I'm getting at. You know... friends, hobbies? Something besides monsters?"

Blake shrugged, then let out a small sigh. "It's not... there's not much point, really."

"Well, maybe getting along as a whole team is a lot to ask, but... you seem pretty nice to me. And I've been told I'm a gem!" He winked. She stared at him for a moment, like she wasn't quite sure anyone that stupid could really exist, and was debating whether or not he had to be a mirage.

"...Okay, ignore that last part. Please."

"It's not you."

"Uh, what?"

"I mean..." She ran a hand through her hair, then hissed out a breath through her teeth. "I can't do this. With the other two... coming here was a mistake."

Jaune flinched. "Yeah, I've been thinking that too." He twisted around so that he was facing her, and mustered up his most optimistic smile. "But we're here, like it or not, right? So... might as well make the best of it."

"...Right."

She didn't look convinced. Instead she dipped her head back down to focus on her book, and Jaune ceased to exist. He made a few more half-hearted attempts to revive the conversation. Blake ignored them. He was about to duck away when he had a sudden flash of inspiration.

"Oh!" he blurted, "I was hoping you could come to the cafeteria for dinner later? I'll be hanging around with Brine and Raspberry, and they're way easier to get along with than Cardin and Weiss."

She glanced up at him, hesitated, then shrugged.

"Oh. Well, uh... just show up if you can! And... I guess I'll see you in the dorm." She waved and returned her attention to the book. Jaune took a few steps back, hoping she would look up again, then turned and jogged back inside. Right.

The moment he was out of sight of her, he slumped against the wall and let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a whine. That had _not_ gone well. And now he had to muster the courage to approach _Weiss._

"I hate my life," he said, to no one in particular. Then he started walking towards the library.

Jaune supposed it could be called lucky that Weiss had returned to the same spot after her call, and was seated at the same table in the corner. It meant he didn't have to wander around looking for her. It _also_ meant that he had no excuse for putting off talking to her. On balance, he wasn't feeling so lucky. Steeling himself, he strode towards her until he was standing just to her left. She ignored him. Pointedly.

"Hi!" Jaune blurted, because it had just worked so _wonderfully_ last time. _Idiot!_

"No." Weiss still hadn't actually looked at him. Instead she kept her head buried in a textbook, carefully scratching out notes with her left hand.

Okay. So... that wasn't much to go on. Jaune wasn't willing to give up _that_ easily, though. He sat down next to her, fidgeted for a moment, then asked, "What are you reading?"

She shot him a side-long glare. Jaune inched away a little, but didn't leave the table. Eventually, Weiss rolled her eyes and grumbled, "Our history textbook."

"Oh. I thought you finished the homework, though." Jaune had not. He was really, _really_ hoping she wouldn't ask him about that.

Instead, Weiss made a derisive noise. "I finished what's due tomorrow, _yes,_ but there's another chapter for Tuesday."

_"What?"_ Jaune groaned and let his head hit the table in front of him. "But _why?"_ he whined, momentarily forgetting who he was talking to.

"Beacon is one of the most prestigious combat schools in the world," Weiss sniffed. "If you can't handle the workload, maybe you shouldn't be here."

Jaune clenched a fist under the table, then took a deep breath. Arguing with her wouldn't help. He was here to build bridges, not yell at people. Plus, if he started shouting then she would, too, and he really didn't want that. Instead he stayed silent for a moment, glaring at the table and trying to come up with a way to salvage this.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Weiss asked him. He scowled—just because he and textbooks didn't get along that well, didn't mean she had to seem so surprised he'd decided to go to Beacon. Still, it was a start.

"Well, I grew up around heroes," Jaune explained, "and I always wanted to do that when I was older. You know, be the knight in shining armor?"

She raised an eyebrow. There it was—the unimpressed face. "I _meant,_ what are you doing _here?_ At this table?"

"Oh. _Oh._ I wanted to talk to you."

"About?"

Jaune froze.

She turned to look at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "If this is more of that 'team Jaune' nonsense—"

"No!" he blurted, holding up both hands. "Nothing like that, promise! I'm just... trying to get to know my team."

If anything, that seemed to make Weiss _more_ annoyed. She turned back to her notes with a scowl. "And here I thought you might be about to do some of your History readings."

"Uh..."

"I really don't understand how you're supposed to be our _leader_ when you barely even apply yourself academically."

Jaune clenched his fist again, trying to remind himself of why he _wasn't_ going to snap back. Frustration won out. "Look, would you _please_ stop acting like I forced Ozpin to make me the leader?"

She opened her mouth to retort, but he interrupted her. "I hate leading this team. I kind of hate _being_ on this team, and I'm pretty sure that's the _one thing_ all four of us can agree on. But I'm _trying,_ okay? I want this to work. It's why I'm sitting down with everyone, so I can find some common ground with everyone and get things at least _civil."_

Again, a flash of annoyance—even anger. "Civil," she repeated, her voice dripping with contempt.

When had this started going _so wrong?_ Jaune groaned. "Do you have to be this difficult all the time? I just—"

"Don't talk to me like you're somehow _better,"_ Weiss snapped. "Like you wouldn't be fighting with the rest of us if it weren't for your tragic lack of a _spine."_

"God!" he burst out, standing up from the table. "It's like you're _trying_ to be a pain!"

"It's like _you're_ trying to be impossibly dense!"

Jaune turned around, grabbing a fistful of his own hair out of sheer frustration. He took a few deep breaths. This wasn't the _plan!_ He was supposed to have a nice talk, not... _this._ With that in mind, he sat back down and stayed silent for a long, tense moment. Then he sat back down and sighed. "I don't want to fight."

"It doesn't _seem_ like it."

"I _don't_ want to _fight."_ He rubbed at his face with both hands, then dropped them into his lap. "I just wanted... I don't know, to know your favorite color? Hobbies? _Something?_ I thought if we could do _that,_ then we could be teammates."

For a while, there was silence. Then Weiss said, "Red."

"Huh?"

_"Red,_ you idiot. I like the color red."

Jaune stared at her for a moment, nonplussed. He hadn't actually expected her to answer the question—and he definitely hadn't expected her to say that her favorite color was _red._

"I, uh... kind of thought you'd say white, or something."

"Just because I like it, doesn't mean I feel the need to wear it all the time," she huffed. "Besides, white and blue suit me better." That was a bit of a dangerous statement, since Jaune had the sense that he couldn't agree or disagree with it without annoying her. So, he decided to ignore it completely.

"Okay. Um, any hobbies?"

"I sang for a while."

"Could you sing—"

"No."

Jaune drummed his fingers on the table, and Weiss glared at him. "Uh... have you seen any movies lately?"

"No."

Things... went on in that vein. At the very least, Weiss didn't shut him off _completely_ the way Blake had—he wasn't sure _why,_ since she seemed to find him annoying at best and distracting at worst, but she let him keep making awkward attempts at conversation while she worked her way through the history textbook. At one point he asked her what she was reading about, and she told him that she would _not_ be doing his homework for him.

"Do you mind if I read here, then?" he asked, standing up and gesturing at the shelves.

Weiss shrugged. "Far be it from me to stand in the way of your academic betterment. Unless you're loud."

"I'm not," he promised.

Once they were both occupied, a strange sort of peace settled over their little table. Weiss was surprisingly good company when she wasn't talking, and Jaune found that it was nice to be able to just relax around one of his teammates for... pretty much the first time since the Emerald Forest. He read the assignment due Monday, then decided that the exploits of General Lagune were a lot more appealing than a chat with Cardin and kept going for another two chapters. It was only very reluctantly that, when he checked the clock and found there was only about half an hour before dinner, he closed his history book.

Weiss looked up at the noise. "Leaving?"

"Yeah," Jaune sighed. "I have to talk to Cardin. If I'm not back in like an hour, assume he killed me."

"Right."

She was being snippy again, though Jaune had long since given up on figuring out _why._ Instead he smiled as warmly as he could and said, "I'll be sitting with Brine and Raspberry at dinner. You could join us, if you want."

Scowling, Weiss made a shooing gesture with one hand. "If I really have nothing better to do by then."

That... didn't exactly sound like a yes. It was also as good as he was going to get. Jaune waved, then walked out of the library, stopping only to put his borrowed textbook back on the shelf. Then he trudged towards ABSW's dorm, feeling a little bit like he was on his way to the gallows.

He knocked on the door, then realized it was incredibly dumb to be politely asking to be let into _his own room._ From somewhere inside, a familiar male voice called out, "What?"

"Uh, it's me," Jaune replied. A pause.

The door opened, revealing his partner dressed in the black clothing he wore under his armor. He gave Jaune a contemptuous once-over, snorted, then made to close the door.

"Wait!"

"What do you want, _Vomit Boy?"_ Jaune winced. Technically it was Yang and Ruby that had started the nickname, but with them he knew it wasn't malicious. Cardin was a very different story.

"I want to talk," he explained. "Try and work out some common ground before our team implodes."

Another snort. "Listen, kid," Cardin said, shifting his weight so that he was invading Jaune's personal space just a little bit. "As long as the prissy princess and the stuck-up bitch are on this team, it's fucked anyway. So, shoo."

Well. This was going about as well as Jaune had expected. He shoved his foot forward to keep Cardin from closing the door, then glared at him. "They're our _teammates,"_ he insisted. "And we're going to have to work with them if we don't want to fail out of Beacon. Or, you know, die."

"As far as I'm concerned, you three idiots are just holding me back."

_As far as reality is concerned..._ Jaune didn't say it out loud. Instead he mustered his patience and shrugged. "We're still teammates. I asked Goodwitch, and we're stuck together the way we are regardless."

"Ooh," Cardin cooed, his voice rising half an octave. "Did widdle Jauney-boy talk to the big mean teacher?"

"I asked her to change the teams," Jaune went on, ignoring him. "She said no. So we're going to have to figure out how to work together."

"That's where you're wrong." Cardin grinned and leaned against the doorframe. "I'm not spending four years with _any_ of you. When we're on missions, we stand in the same forests or whatever, but we do our own thing. Then we come back to Beacon, and I can stick with people who _aren't_ a fucking nightmare."

"Like Ermine?" ERMN was the third-year team of boys who Cardin had been eating with since the first day in the cafeteria. They were, as far as Jaune could tell, every bit as awful as he was, but could actually fight. He was fairly sure they let the guy hang around them because they thought he was funny.

"Obviously." Cardin reached out to ruffle his hair. Jaune tried to duck, but his teammate just put him in a headlock and kept on doing what he was doing. "Maybe someday, you can find some third-years who'll let you clean their gear or something. Probably a pack of those animals. But, you know, everyone has to start somewhere."

Jaune wrenched himself away. "We're not going to pass if you keep acting like this."

"Says the guy who can't figure out which end of the sword to use." Cardin laughed at his own joke, then gave Jaune a hard push backwards and slammed the door in his face. He hadn't gotten around to inviting him to dinner with Brine and Raspberry, but at this point he just wanted to be _away from him_ for as long as possible.

"I hate my life," Jaune sighed, as he headed for the cafeteria.

* * *

Russel had gotten used to Jaune joining their two teams at mealtimes. As much as he was _probably_ a bit of a jerk for thinking it, the guy was like a dejected puppy that Ruby and Pyrrha had adopted. He hung around, looked cute in a really unthreatening sort of way, and was too timid to properly threaten a hamster. And sometimes, like today, he'd pee on the carpet.

"Hey, guys!" Jaune said, with very obviously faked cheer in his voice. Weiss and Blake stood to either side of him, scowling.

Russel didn't say anything. Neither did anyone else. It was a very loud, emphatic silence. Jaune sat down anyway, with two of his three teammates flanking him and glaring at each other, their leader, and basically everything else.

"Well," Yang said, clapping her hands together. "This is fun!"

"Yang!" Ruby hissed, then tried to kick her under the table. Russel yelped as her boot connected with his shin.

"Yes. Fun." Blake seemed to be trying to burn a hole into the side of Jaune's head with only her eyes. "I'm so glad we're all here. _Together."_

Jaune's grin twitched. He looked more nauseous than anything else, at this point.

"The surprise just makes it better," Russel added, adding his own glare to the mix. It wasn't that he disliked Blake and Weiss—except he did. Mostly because they couldn't seem to stop yelling at each other for more than a few minutes at a time.

This time, it was Nora that kicked him. "Ow!"

"The more the merrier," Pyrrha said. It boggled Russel's mind that she'd managed to say it without even a trace of sarcasm.

"Okay..." Jaune shifted uncomfortably, caught as he was between two very unhappy teammates. "So maybe we're not used to eating together, but this could be a good way to, you know, bond? As teammates?"

"Mention trust falls," Weiss said, "and I will end you."

"I'm not! I'm just saying that if you guys are going to get along—"

"We're not." Blake stood up from the table, taking her plate with her. "This surprise intervention thing is a waste of time."

"Wait, Blake—!" He reached out to catch her wrist, but she twisted away and stalked out of the cafeteria. Russel watched her go, mostly out of a feeling of horrified awe. It was impossible to look away, and almost _impressive_ how much of a wreck that team was. Ozpin probably couldn't have made it worse if he'd tried.

Weiss didn't leave, but she also didn't talk to Jaune. She just sat there, stabbing at her food with way more violence than necessary, and BRYN and RSPR had to sort of... talk around her. Like having a casual chat with friends while an Ursa sat in the corner of the room. And then, in a moment that would cement Russel's loyalty to him for the rest of time, Dove stood up, cleared his throat, and said, "We should probably go back to the dorm. Some of us aren't done with the readings yet."

The second they were out of the cafeteria and on their way back to their room, all four of them _sagged_ with relief.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Nora gushed. "I take back all the wet blanket stuff! You are a _hero."_

"Couldn't have done it without you three," Dove said, smirking. "They probably wouldn't have believed that _I_ didn't do the homework yet."

"But we did!" Nora protested. "I mean, I've been done since lunch yesterday."

"Wait, really?" Russel gave her an odd look. "I know _I'm_ done because Dove kidnapped me—"

"Kidnapped is a strong word..."

"—but when did you guys do a bunch of boring readings?"

"Like I said," Nora repeated, more slowly this time. "Before lunch, yesterday."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "What, you think we can't read?"

"No!" Russel waved his arms from side to side. "Nope! I'm just surprised that you guys are so on top of things, considering your love of chaos and destruction. Textbooks don't have any of that. Plus... I wouldn't have done them yet if _someone—_ " he glared at Dove— "hadn't made me."

"Thanks, Dove," their leader said dryly, using his scroll to open the door as they reached the room. "After all, without you my Sunday would be ruined."

_"With_ you, my Saturday was ruined."

"It only took two hours."

"Yeah! _Two hours!"_

Dove rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm heading back to the library. So I suppose it's time for you to flee in terror."

Russel mustered his best horrified shriek and hid behind Yang. She laughed, dragged him out in front of her, and shoved him towards Dove.

"Treachery!" he shouted, ducking away from her and grabbing Nora's arm. She grabbed a pillow and swung it at Dove. "Yes! I knew I could trust you!"

Things devolved, after that. Dove wasn't the type to hit back and start something, but _Yang_ totally was, so they ended up in a high-octane pillow fight where Russel did his best not to get between Nora and Yang and Dove seemed to be trying to break it up. Emphasis on trying.

The whole thing only ended when Russel misjudged a jump and took Yang's pillow to the gut. It ripped open, he hit the floor, and feathers showered down around him. He lifted his head, then let it fall to the ground with a dramatic groan.

"One day," Dove sighed. "Can we please go _one day_ without destroying some of Beacon's property?"

Russel sat up. "We did that, remember? Saturday."

"Ah. I'd forgotten about that. Nice work, then, team." Nora and Yang, who were behind Dove, exchanged a _look._ Russel smothered a laugh with one hand. He couldn't be _that_ surprised—Dove really shouldn't have left those two alone together.

"Well!" Russel said brightly. "I bet you feel real bad, now, scolding us when we were being model students!"

Dove poked him with a boot. "Don't let it get to your head." Russel hadn't been talking to him. He was watching Nora and Yang cringe, and when Dove wasn't looking he tipped them a wink. They glared at him. _Worth it!_

"I'm going to the library," Dove decided. "You three can clean that up."

"What are you doing in the library when you finished all the homework?!" Nora stared at him, eyes narrowed.

"I read for pleasure, too."

Nora shrugged, like she wasn't going to bother trying to understand the behavior of someone who was so obviously an alien. Then she bowed to Yang— "May we have another epic pillow-battle soon!" —and disappeared, probably to wait for Ren and the rest of RSPR. They'd been taking turns spending the evening in one another's dorms. It seemed a little easier on Dove's blood pressure to have Ren around to help manage Nora. It was definitely a lot easier on Dove's blood pressure to pawn her off on him for an entire evening.

That left Russel and Yang alone to clean up the mess. "I feel like this is probably payback for something," he mused, after the fourth time he'd tried to breathe feathers and ended up in a sneezing fit.

"Call it payback for your years as a nefarious car-thief."

"I only did it once," Russel grumbled.

Yang gave him a pointed look, then scooped up some more feathers and deposited them in the trash. "Yeah, yeah. Should I be worried about such a bad influence on this team? You might lead us into a life of crime!"

Russel felt his smile fade—he guessed it wasn't actually BRYN she was worried about. Her eyes widened, and she started backpedaling. "Joke! That was a joke! And, I mean, it's more like all _three_ of us are corrupting Dove..."

"No, that's not it." He sighed. "In the spirit of honest partnerships and junk, I should probably say that... I didn't exactly take it for a joyride."

"Huh?"

"I sold the parts. To buy these." He picked up one of his daggers and flipped it into the air, letting it spin end over end before catching it by the blade. "And some Dust."

He watched Yang for a reaction, fidgeting nervously as her eyebrows furrowed. "Hypothetically, what would've happened if you hadn't done that?"

Russel scowled. "I would've come here without a weapon and tried to pass initiation with the nearest stick."

That made her snort. "Pyrrha could probably pull that off."

"I probably couldn't."

There was silence for a moment. Then she mustered a grin. "Thanks for telling me."

"No problem." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "But, uh..."

"Don't tell anyone. Got it."

He flopped onto the floor, wincing as he disturbed the last few stray feathers. One settled on the bridge of his nose, and he sneezed again.

"Hey, Russel?"

"Hmm?"

She paused, looking uncomfortable. "Uh, if you need... I mean, I could probably pitch in for Dust, if you need it. I'm guessing that's why you don't use it much."

He flushed. "Uh... no, thanks. I prefer paying for that stuff myself. Gotta be independent, all that stuff. But thanks."

"Right."

Awkward silence descended. Russel found himself almost hoping for another sneeze. Then, just as it was getting close to unbearable...

"Guess you had a lot of _drive_ to be here, huh?"

Russel threw some of the feathers at her. It seemed the thing to do.

* * *

_"—dangerous criminal still at large. In the past three weeks, Roman Torchwick has reportedly stolen more than ten tons of Dust in the longest spree of robberies in Vale's history!"_

Pyrrha frowned from where she was sitting, then turned to look over at Ruby. She was watching the news on her scroll, propping the device up on a textbook so that she and Sky could both see it. Ren (and only Ren—he'd made sure to send Nora back to BRYN's dorm by curfew) was cross-legged on his own bed. One eye was cracked open and trained on the screen.

_"It's been a hectic month, even by Torchwick's standards! No less than three Dust shops and an airship carrying Schnee Dust Company product were attacked, culminating in a fight with one of Beacon's own huntresses. Police all over Vale are asking the same question—where will he strike next?"_

"I almost had him," Ruby murmured. "If I'd just—"

Sky gave her a playful shove. "Hey! No blaming yourself for stuff way out of your control. It's worse for your health than smoking."

"I guess..." She flicked her scroll closed cutting off the news broadcast. "I just feel like we should be doing something about him, y'know?"

"Like what?" Pyrrha asked.

Ruby bit her lip. "I want to try to catch him."

"Ruby..." Ren started, looking uneasy.

"I mean, last time he got away, but maybe, you know, with four of us working together... I think we could do it!"

Sky went chalk white, his eyes blowing wide. Ren was frowning, his head starting to shake back and forth. It didn't look like they were considering it so much as they were wondering how best to word their refusals. Pyrrha winced, then cut them off.

"I'm not sure how well that would go," she admitted, "but I'd be willing to try."

Ruby beamed at Pyrrha. Ren quirked an eyebrow at her, and she mouthed the word _please?_ He nodded acceptance. Sky took a bit more convincing. He kept shaking his head frantically from a foot or so behind Ruby, while Pyrrha shot him pleading looks.

Hesitantly, he asked, "What about Brine? Wouldn't they want in on this?" A pause. "And Jaune, I guess."

"Um..." Ruby shifted awkwardly where she sat. "I mean... I was hoping to do kind of a team thing?" When she saw their expressions, she quailed. "Not all of it! Just the research bit. We can look around, maybe do some stakeouts or something, then bring Brine in when we find him. That way we can do some team stuff, and then work with everyone!"

Ren frowned, then nodded. "So long as we're sure to include them... I suppose that would work."

"I think we're in agreement, then?" Pyrrha smiled at Ruby, who hopped off her bed and struck a heroic pose.

"Yes! Operation: bring down Roman Torchwick is a go!"


	10. First Impressions [7]

Sweat beaded on Sky's forehead, ran down his face and dripped from his nose to land on the arena floor. He was panting and his arms ached. He and his opponent were both locked together, all their attention on the match, tense.

They seemed to be the only ones. Some of the spectators were talking amongst themselves, and a few had taken to pointing and mocking. Jaune was mostly ignoring them. Sky was trying to think of them as an environmental danger—the first to be distracted would leave an opening. Easier than dwelling on how pathetic the pair of them probably looked.

After a brief lull to catch his breath, Jaune stepped forward again. His shield was held up at around chest height, and he was peering over it with his hair plastered to his forehead. Slowly, tentatively, he advanced. Sky swung his halberd, and his opponent shuffled back.

"Just _fight_ already!" someone shouted. Jaune glanced over his shoulder—probably Cardin, then, if he reacted to that above all the other ambient noise. Sky lunged forward, but hit only his shield. He was sort of glad—winning because one of the guy's teammates distracted him would've just sucked for both of them.

Jaune slashed at Sky's head, and he had to duck to avoid the blow. Another swipe, this one aimed towards his stomach. That one he turned aside with the shaft of his halberd. Distantly, he heard Ruby cheer. Pyrrha and Ren weren't really the type for loud encouragement, but they'd been smiling at him whenever he glanced their way. He felt a little bit bad for Jaune, because the encouragement was nice and definitely _not_ mirrored by ABSW.

They exchanged a flurry of blows, though calling it a flurry implied a certain amount of speed and grace. It was more of a series of clumsy swings, wherein Jaune overextended and Sky punished him by whacking him over the head with his halberd—to almost no effect. It was _so unfair_ how tough he was. Sky had better armor, but when he took a glancing blow to his side he lost a solid chunk of his aura.

"Just... hah... just so you know?" Sky panted. "This feels like... ungh... trying to kill a boulder with a baseball bat."

"Thanks," Jaune wheezed.

The fight _was_ a nice boost in Sky's confidence, even if things weren't going so well. He could tell that he was the more skilled fighter despite the fact that he'd lost more aura—he'd gotten in more hits than he'd taken. Sparring with Ruby _was_ helping a little, it was just completely impossible to tell when he was fighting one of his terrifying teammates. Or Nora. That comparison put things in perspective, some—as annoying as Jaune's ridiculous defense might have been, at least he didn't have any grenades.

Sky swept his halberd horizontally. Jaune didn't backpedal in time, and the axe blade connected with his gut before he batted it away with his shield. His aura dipped more sharply, that time. It was still in the green.

After flailing for a moment, Jaune decided to charge forward and swing his sword. Sky yelped, then tried to get his halberd back in line. Instead, he ended up whacking one of the other boy's knees with the butt end of the weapon. Jaune half-tripped, then shoved his shield into Sky's chest, sending him staggering backwards. Someone in the audience started laughing.

It was hard not to feel a sense of kinship with Jaune, at that point. Neither of them were fighters—that much was painfully obvious. Maybe he'd been admitted on academics like Sky, or something else like leadership, but he was definitely in the same boat. A boat that the rest of their class didn't seem to want to take very seriously.

_Someday,_ Sky thought. _Someday, I'm going to make it through a fight without tripping over myself._ That seemed like a nice, reasonable goal to set for himself, at least for their first semester at Beacon. He jabbed at Jaune again, then winced when the parry sent his weapon far out of line.

They went on like that for what felt like a long time but was probably only around half a minute, back and forth. One would make a mistake, the other would try to clobber him and usually succeed. Jaune's aura went down by slivers, Sky's in fits and spurts. Ruby started cheering for both of them. Cardin took to booing whenever one of them was hit.

Then, finally— _finally!—_ Jaune's aura had been whittled down to the point where he might actually _stay down,_ soon. Sky was almost in the red himself. This meant that the two of them found the fight very climactic, but the audience still didn't seem to be agreeing with them.

"Trip again!" Cardin shouted. "That should work!"

Someone else laughed. Sky flushed, but charged forward regardless. He swung, and Jaune retreated—that meant he got to exploit his reach. Mercilessly. Which meant a lot of poking and prodding with the pointy bit at the end of the axe head, and some timid swings.

Jaune took a few steps forward, ducking past the axe and swinging at Sky's head. He blocked it, then tried to shove his opponent back and away from him. Reeling, Jaune slashed out with his sword and let out a defiant yell. Another shove, and he was struggling to keep his feet.

Sky processed the next moment in something of a slide show. One snapshot, Jaune was off-balance and helpless. The next, his entire field of vision was filled with the other boy's shield. Then, he was staring up at the ceiling and his nose hurt. Ruby was cheering, but that meant basically nothing—she was determined to root for both of them equally.

"That's the match," Glynda Goodwitch said, and he slumped. He raised his head enough to see Jaune rubbing at his side and wincing. His shield was still raised from when he'd smashed it into Sky's face.

"You've both improved," their teacher began. Someone, probably Cardin, sniggered. She cast a severe glance over her shoulder, and the offender went silent. "Both of you could stand to work on your basic forms and get more comfortable with your weapons, but your tactics were solid."

Sky hung his head for a moment, then straightened and mustered a grin. He shook Jaune's hand. Cardin said something Sky didn't catch, and one of the people next to him laughed. Not the others in ABSW, of course—he never sat with them.

As quickly as he dared, Sky jogged back to his place between Ren and Ruby. He plopped down in his seat, and placed his hands over his face to cool it. A combination of exertion and embarrassment had turned it beet red. He knew what he was good at, and he knew that wasn't combat. He _hadn't_ known, at least until Beacon, that it was way harder than movies made it seem to be the sort of tactical fighter that can win battles even without being that great with a weapon. Especially when every fight takes place in a featureless arena with no cover.

The rest of the day went in a bit of a blur. Part of that was the fact that their next class was Oobleck, who seemed to have no other setting. Another, larger part was that RSPR was impatient. Well, Ren wasn't, but even he was glancing at the clock more often than usual. They'd planned to make their first steps towards catching Torchwick that evening, which meant that they headed straight to the library the second the final bell released them.

Ruby kept rushing ahead, only to hop from foot to foot as the rest of them struggled to keep up with her. Pyrrha tried to rein her in by pointing out that they probably wouldn't see any action today, even if things went remarkably well. Sky spent the walk partly zoned out, dreading what would happen when they _did_ find Torchwick, while his partner seemed completely unfazed as usual.

At last, they invaded the library with singleminded determination, startling Blake from where she sat in a particularly shadowy corner, and then... stopped. Stalled.

"Uh," Sky said, after a long moment. "What do we do now?"

"Research?" Ruby suggested.

"Yeah, I mean... where do we _start?"_

Pyrrha pointed towards a nearby terminal that was apparently devoted to various newspapers. "We could read up on his most recent robberies, and look for a pattern."

That was, as it turned out, easier said than done. Each of them pored over different newspapers for almost an hour, with Ren migrating over to a different terminal and Ruby and Pyrrha hunting down some hard copies. Sky skimmed through the things, scrawling notes on a pad of paper he'd brought with him and eventually going cross-eyed at the sheer _number_ of thefts. Torchwick had hit around twenty shops in the past three months. That was... that was _ridiculous!_

"What the hell is he _doing_ with it all?!" he demanded to himself, his teammates, and the universe at large. The four of them had gathered at one of the library's larger tables to compare their findings, and Pyrrha was drawing a neat, color-coded timeline of all the burglaries. It was good that she was handling that—Sky liked this sort of thing, but he... well, he was organized enough for his own purposes, but when Ruby had tried to read his handwriting she'd thought he'd written _Tailcoat_ instead of _Torchwick._

"He could just be selling it," Ruby said, peering over Pyrrha's shoulder to see better.

Ren shook his head. "I'm not so sure. Dust prices have been rising, which seems to suggest that it isn't getting back into circulation."

Sky threw his hands up in exasperation. "No one could possibly need that much. Unless Torchwick has an _army,_ for some reason."

_That_ was a chilling thought, but... no, the guy was a petty thief. He didn't have any reason to equip an entire army when he made his living by taking things that weren't his and staying just a little less dangerous than it would take for people to get serious about bringing him in. At least, that was his modus operandi until recently—now he had all of Vale gunning for his head. _Why?_

"You don't make sense," Sky told the black-and-white photo of Torchwick that featured in one of the news articles.

Ren hummed thoughtfully. "I believe I see a pattern."

The four of them all leaned in to see the timeline, while Ren tapped at a few different spots. "He seems to commit his crimes in clusters. See here? Seven in as little as four days, then a break of almost three weeks."

Sky sat up, ramrod straight. "Map!" he blurted. "I need a map!"

Ruby scrambled to collect one, then spread it flat across the table. Sky didn't want to ruin something that belonged to the library, so he grabbed a stack of sticky notes and they all started placing them in the general area where the robberies had taken place. They were color-coded, too—one shade for each of the four 'clusters' of robberies. And each color was confined to roughly the same part of the map.

"He's cycling through different districts!" Sky had the presence of mind to whisper, but his excitement made it difficult. "And if you look at the sequence, he always moves to somewhere far away when he's finished with one spot. So, if the last series of burglaries was here—" he tapped a spot on the map where Ruby had placed a green post-it that read _Dusk 'Till Dawn_ — "Then we want to look... kind of here-ish." He used his finger to circle a spot on the map on the opposite side of the city, where no other group of post-its had yet been spread. "I'm guessing he hits each area hard, then leaves when the cops get wind of where he is, and comes back somewhere else once they've forgotten about him. So he's probably going to stick to more rundown areas, where the response will be slower—like the docks." Part of the spot he'd marked out as being a likely next target was right at the waterfront. "And he's focusing on the commercial district, mostly, which makes sense since that's where most of the Dust Shops are. So probably right along here." A final, bright red post-it with an X on it marked the likely target.

When he looked up, all three of the others were staring at him. "Um, I mean... I thought it made sense?"

"That's awesome!" Ruby crowed. "All we have to do is go out there and look for him!"

"Woah!" Sky waved his hands, then made a time-out sign. "This... isn't that exact. He might go somewhere completely different, it's just a guess."

"It's the best we have," Ren pointed out.

"Uh, well... maybe it'd be better to scout it out first? He just hit _Dusk 'Till Dawn_ about a week ago, so he won't be back for a while. We could look around that area for shops he might want to rob. I'd prefer having better evidence than just my hunch and a bunch of post-its if we're going to share this."

"Okay, team!" Ruby clapped her hands together, grinning. "Operation scouting is a go!"

Ren coughed. "Um, Ruby? It's... almost eight."

"Oh." She hung her head. _"Fine,_ we can wait until tomorrow."

* * *

"Okay!" Jaune declared, turning to face the room with his hands on his hips. "I have Uno... Monopoly... and Candy Land."

Two pairs of disbelieving eyes stared back at him. He tried not to look too daunted. "Any preferences?"

Blake's left eye twitched. "Not Monopoly."

"I refuse to sink to the level of _Candy Land."_ Weiss made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, then folded her arms to glare around the room.

"...Okay!" Jaune said again, keeping up his enthusiasm through sheer force of will. "Uno it is, then!"

Weiss sneered. "What a waste of an evening."

"I'd rather not," Blake grumbled, at almost the exact same time.

"You guys promised!" Jaune reminded them.

"I didn't promise anything," Blake protested. "You dragged us here!"

"I think we all know I couldn't drag anyone anywhere. But as your team leader—" both of them twitched a little, at that— "I'm... okay, ordering is a strong word. I'm _suggesting_ that we start doing things as a team."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Yes. Our whole team. All four of us. Oh, wait..." Cardin wasn't there. Jaune couldn't honestly say he was sorry about that.

"The parts of the team that are at least _open_ to cooperating," Jaune amended. "Look, just... humor me, okay? I'm trying to get us working together better, so that we can stop getting flattened in sparring."

_That_ seemed to work. No one wanted to be the team that got routed by a single partner pair, even if that was _totally unfair._ He was pretty sure Pyrrha counted as at least two people, and Ruby fought with her so well that it was kind of scary.

Begrudgingly, they agreed to play a few rounds. Blake ended up sitting on her bunk, while Weiss took Jaune's so that they were across from one another. That left him hesitating, not wanting to take a particular side even if it was just seating. He pulled up a chair, and ignored the two of them giving him incredulous looks.

"Team bonding!" he declared, slapping down a deck of cards on the bedspread next to him. "Now, who knows how to shuffle?"

It turned out that Jaune had made two fatal errors. The first was that Blake was _obnoxiously_ lucky when it came to cards, and Weiss seemed to be perpetually stuck with just one color. The second was that Uno was a bonding exercise in the same way that Grimm were service animals.

"This is _the third time!"_ Weiss screeched, staring in open disbelief at the card Blake had just played. "How many of those do you even have?!"

"Draw four." The smug look on Blake's face probably wasn't helping. "Oh, and red, by the way."

"You are such an—"

"Just saying," Jaune grumbled, "If _you_ hadn't skipped me, I could've used a reverse."

Weiss scoffed. "Like you'd put yourself into the line of fire."

He _would_ have, actually. Something told him that Blake mercilessly barraging Weiss with every nasty card she could get her hands on (which was a _staggering_ amount) wasn't doing anything good for their friendship. Or maybe acquaintanceship. Heck, he'd settle for mild dislike.

Still, he hadn't brought them here for nothing. He hadn't even really brought them here to play board games and bond—he had something of an ulterior motive. Sort of. More like something he wanted to try while they were both in the same room, and that really only happened when he herded them somewhere.

"I've been thinking—" he started. Weiss groaned, while Blake rather pointedly turned her attention to her cards.

"Ugh, guys! Just hear me out? I noticed that arguments on this team can get kinda... um, out of hand."

"Really?" Weiss flicked through her deck (calling it a hand was no longer accurate) and played another skip. "I hadn't noticed."

"And _my idea,"_ Jaune continued, maybe a bit louder than necessary, "was that you could have a pause button." Both of them ignored the game entirely to stare blankly at him for several long seconds. He tried to grin.

It was Weiss that broke the silence. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Well, if things start getting out of hand one of you could just say _pause,_ and then the argument is frozen until you agree to unpause. That way you can come back to it once you've cooled off."

Blake snorted. "Are you our team leader or our therapist?"

"Both, _apparently."_ It just kind of slipped out, with no real intervention from Jaune's better judgment. Blake seemed amused, but Weiss _definitely didn't._

"What, so whoever is losing can just call it quits?"

"Guys!" Jaune massaged the bridge of his nose. "No one on this team ever wins any arguments. The arguments would have to _end_ first."

"Either way," Blake interjected, "It still sounds like an easy way for whoever's in the wrong to shut things down without even listening."

"Because you guys don't do that already," Jaune grumbled under his breath.

Weiss' eyes narrowed. "What was that?"

"Nothing!" he blurted, and then in a desperate attempt to change the subject, "How about... uh... those dust theory readings."

"Which _someone_ didn't do." Weiss snapped. She played another card. "Draw two, for your lack of conscientiousness."

Jaune hung his head. "I tried! It's just that there were so many charts..."

"If you're going to stay here, the least you could do is _try_ to apply yourself."

"You're not one to talk about not belonging here," Blake retorted.

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Just that a _generous donation_ probably changed hands, somewhere between your application and acceptance."

Weiss jerked to her feet, fists clenched. "You have it _all_ figured out, don't you?" Her hand flicked, and the heap of cards she'd been collecting fluttered to the floor. The door slammed behind her. Jaune stared at it for a moment, still reeling.

"Oh, come on..." he groaned, flopping forward until his hair brushed the floor. "It was going so well..."

"No, it wasn't." Blake bent to pick up some of the scattered cards, then deposited them on Jaune's bed.

"But it wasn't going _badly!"_

"We're not going to be friends, Jaune. We just... don't mix."

"You could _try,_ though!" He ran a hand through his hair. "I mean, come on! Did you have to bring that up, about her paying to get in?"

"It's probably true."

"No!" He kicked out at the nearest solid object, which happened to be Cardin's bed. "It's not! And that isn't the point!"

"You want us to be friends." Blake laughed. "Do you want to be all buddy-buddy with Cardin, too?"

_"Yes!"_ he nearly screamed. "Yes, I want to try with Cardin, too. I _did_ try. I went to talk to him, I gave him a chance, and I'm going to _keep_ doing that until something sticks!" She opened her mouth to respond, but he held up a hand. "Look, just... if this is going to work, _one_ of you has to give a little ground first. Okay? We can't stay like this for four years."

Her expression darkened. "No," she said, half to herself. "I guess we can't." Then she strode past him, out the door. Jaune had a feeling he wouldn't be seeing her again until class tomorrow.

* * *

"You'd think he'd know better by now," Russel mused. He was kicked back on one of the beds, looking over at the closed door of their dorm. "Leaving us alone. With Ren out."

Yang made a face at him. "You make it sound like we're little kids that need supervision."

"We _do_ need supervision."

"We're teenagers, not toddlers!"

"Sorry, what happened last time Dove left two of us alone?"

Yang winced. Nora wasn't sure why. After all, "We didn't get in trouble. Probably. Professor Port only sort of caught us."

Russel stared at her. "How do you only _sort of_ get caught?"

"We don't know if he caught us," Yang admitted. "He was... really vague, okay?"

"Vague?"

"He told us to keep on the straight and narrow, then winked."

Russel squinted at nothing. "Well, that's either... really chill of him, or _really_ creepy."

"Or both," Nora added helpfully. "Lots of things are both."

"What are we going to do, anyway?"

"Huh?" Yang stared at him. "What do you mean?"

Russel blinked. "Oh. I mean, I just sort of assumed we were going to do something insane. Or stupid. Or both."

"Both is good," Nora agreed, grinning.

"Weren't you _just_ saying that we're so irresponsible that we need a chaperone?"

"So? I was pointing it out, not complaining. The past week has been the most fun I've ever had!"

Yang frowned. "I don't know. Seems like we should try to keep it a little bit less... destructive. Otherwise Dove's never going to be able to get a break."

"Point," Russel sighed. "I guess we know who the secondary voice of reason is."

"We've gotta do _something!"_ Nora insisted. "I'm bored." At least part of that was that Ren was— _again!_ —off in some training session with RSPR. She was seriously going to fight Ruby if this became a regular thing. Sure, they'd both hung out together all evening yesterday, but the day before that and now today? Too much! _Way_ too much!

Though... "Maybe we could do team attacks," Nora mused. "If Raspberry are doing it all the time, it's gotta be fun. Right?"

"We don't have our leader, though," Yang said.

Russel shrugged. "Can't be that hard. We already did that thing where Nora hit you and charged up your semblance."

"Ooh!" Nora grabbed him by the shoulder. "Do you have lightning Dust? 'Cause I can absorb that stuff, kinda like Yang absorbs hits. Then we could be, like, super batteries!"

He hesitated. "Uh... no, not really. I have a little fire, but I'm saving it until our final exams, or a life-or-death situation."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "That thing with the giant dragonfly didn't count as life-or-death?"

"A life-or-death situation? Totally. One that fire Dust can _fix?_ Not so much."

"I don't get it, though." Nora frowned. "Ren and me get money from Beacon for ammo and stuff. Why not use that?"

Russel's face fell. "I, uh... it's kind of a long story, but I had a job before I came here that was paying for stuff around the house. I can't work when I'm at school full-time, so instead I send back some of the stipend."

"That sucks." Nora patted him on the shoulder.

Russel only laughed. "Nah! It's great being here. I just have to rely more on the blades than the Dust, is all." Nora narrowed her eyes, taking in the way his smile seemed a tad strained at the corners. She glanced at Yang, who nodded. Something would have to be done.

"Well!" Yang clapped him on the back. "No worries. Once we have the free time, we can just produce a reality drama about Alabaster and all your financial problems will be solved."

"...Yeah, no. Not worth Weiss and Blake trying to kill me."

"Well!" Nora declared, echoing Yang. "I guess we'll just have to start some underground cage matches! All my lien on Pyrrha!"

"No one's going to take that bet, Nora," Russel said. The corner of his mouth twitched.

Yang grinned. "How about we hire ourselves out as bodyguards?"

"Or we could be demolitionists! Think of all the explosions!"

Russel cringed. "I'm thinking of them, and I'm thinking you should stay far away, Nora."

Nora puffed herself up indignantly. "I'm great with explosives! We get along like... like Dove and homework!"

"That's kind of the problem."

"No, no!" Yang cried out, shaking her head. "We've been looking at this all wrong! What we really need to do... is _publish Port's stories!"_

Russel stared at her, his disgust warring with incredulity. "What?! No!"

"People would pay millions!" Nora agreed. "Billions!"

"Quintillions!" Yang added.

"And Russ could narrate his whole life story!" Nora grinned at him. "All seven hundred hours!"

"I did _not_ agree to this!" he wailed, clutching dramatically at his chest. "This is too much! The horror!" Then he flopped over onto his side and started laughing.

"It's too late!" Yang poked him with her foot. "You're doomed!"

"I totally am," he sighed, rolling onto his back. "We're going to blow up the wrong thing, and then Goodwitch will murder us."

"Why do you and Dove always assume something is going to explode?" Yang asked, incredulous. "We've never once blown anything up."

"We jumped off a bunch of cliffs, though," Nora added. "That was _awesome."_

"Nora uses heart-shaped grenades, and you have gauntlets that explode when you punch things." Russel stared at them, nonplussed. "How will we _possibly_ go four years without blowing anything up?"

"Oh, we're _totally_ going to blow something up eventually," Yang agreed. "I just meant that it's a little unfair to blame us for it before it even happens."

"Fair enough."

"To inevitably blowing up Beacon!" Nora cheered.

In the hallway outside, there was a sudden yelp, and then a _thud_ as something hit the ground. Yang rose and opened the door. "Uh, hi Dove."

"Kill me now," he groaned, from where he lay on the floor. "Before you do whatever you planned while I left you alone for _less than an hour."_

"We're not _planning_ on blowing up the school," Nora said indignantly. "It's just that it's totally going to happen someday and I think we all know it."

"In our defense," Yang added, "It isn't _necessarily_ going to be Beacon."

Russel tapped a finger against his chin. "Then again, we do spend most of our time here."

Dove sighed. "I really, really wish I could argue with any of that."

Yang and Nora exchanged a look with Russel. "If you can't beat 'em..." Russel started.

"Join us!" Yang and Nora cheered in unison.

Dove smothered a groan in the crook of his elbow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record? While playing Uno with a friend of mine I got called a bastard at least five times, managed to draw something like fifteen cards in a row that were somehow all green, and one round went on for (I-shit-thee-not) over an hour. I'm kind of surprised we didn't murder each other.


	11. First Impressions [8]

The dorm was silent but for a low, rhythmic buzzing. A scroll rattled its way across a desk. Stopped. Started again.

Weiss pressed her hands over her eyes. Her scroll kept vibrating. It would be so, so _easy_ to just ignore it. The buzzing stopped, and her heart leapt into her throat—had she left it too long? Then it went off again, and she forced herself to pick it up and jab the answer button.

"Hello, Father."

"I've been in contact with the school. Again."

"I assure you, it's not as bad as it—"

"I had my doubts about sending you there," he said, cutting her off. "But I thought I'd trust your judgment."

 _Trust._ Her right hand curled into a fist. "I know."

"Now I find you've been, what? Ignoring your schoolwork altogether? I don't understand how you could _possibly_ be finding Beacon's curriculum this difficult. You're smarter than that."

"Beacon often combines team scores, and I—I just need to speak with them, let them know that they need to—"

"I'm not talking about cumulative scores—though with the state they're in, I have to assume that one or more of your teammates is _illiterate._ I'm talking about _your_ scores."

"I... I see."

"Do you? I'm not _trying_ to be unreasonable, but this is completely unacceptable."

"I know," she snapped. "I know! I'm just..." _Frustrated. Distracted. Exhausted._ "I'll do better."

"See that you do. I didn't like this idea from the start, Weiss, and if it turns out to be an excuse to get away from home so that you can shirk your responsibilities—"

"It's not."

He made a skeptical noise, then hung up. Weiss sagged where she sat on her bed, then looked at the scroll. It took a moment to convince herself not to hurl it across the room. Another to put it down, gently, and continue getting ready for the day. Jaune was already gone—breakfast with RSPR and BRYN, as always. Blake and Cardin had both spent the night outside the dorm—Cardin with ERMN, Blake... somewhere. That meant she could take her time in the bathroom, enjoy the silence for a while.

The place felt echoingly empty.

She was still seething when she arrived at her first class of the day—which, given that it was a Thursday, was Grimm Studies with Port. Blake was already there, seated at the far end of the room with two empty chairs to either side. Weiss left them that way. Experience told her that Jaune would arrive late, and Cardin maybe not at all.

Looking down, she realized that she'd taken out her notebook and was poised over it with a pen. Port was talking, but she wasn't sure what about. Something to do with a King Taijitu and a rusty spork. Probably factually inaccurate. Probably also going to be on the test.

 _This is pointless,_ she wrote, in neat flowing cursive. Then she hastily scratched it out. The blemish squatted in the upper-left corner of the page like a gargoyle, and she found herself even _more_ reluctant to start writing than when it had been entirely blank.

"—all the youth and vitality of a dozen young huntsmen, or so I've been told!" Port winked at someone. Weiss wondered whether her situation could get any more dire if she ignored him entirely.

 _All the youth and vitality of a dozen young huntsmen,_ she wrote. Without context she had no idea whether that sentence had been important. She'd missed another one while she was writing.

Something about Port's voice, or maybe Father's, had left her feeling sluggish and stupid. She tried to tune back in and resisted the urge to growl when she realized that he had been, once again, talking about himself. Her tutor in this very subject had always been polite, professional, and utterly unwilling to spend any time whatsoever on anything that didn't involve Grimm guts. Not for the first time, she wondered whether she'd gained anything of substance by coming here. She still spent most of her time alone with her face buried in a textbook, or being yelled at. At least with her teammates she could yell _back._

"—this very establishment!" Port announced, mustache quivering excitedly. "Just imagine it! A shining Beacon on the hill, a chance at freedom and glory for huntsmen-in-training for miles around! But of course, at this point I hadn't yet become a teacher, so my involvement with the institution was—"

Weiss crossed out the words _shining Beacon on the hill._ Then again, more violently.

"—but of course, even in the days following initiation the Emerald Forest is positively _teeming_ with the creatures of Grimm! Some of you found that out firsthand, hmm?" He chortled knowingly. Weiss noticed absently that there was a vein in Dove's forehead that looked ready to pop. She wrote down, _Monsters in the forest full of monsters. Obviously._

Her hand twitched a few times, then went limp. The tip of her pen traced a haphazard line across the few notes she'd jotted down, then stilled. She hated Port's voice. She hated his stupid classroom full of fake trophies. She hated that she was sitting here when she could have just read the textbook and found all the necessary information _far_ more efficiently.

She hated that Beacon was feeling more and more familiar by the day.

Disgusted, she gave up and dropped her pen. Then she picked it up again, suddenly hyper-aware of the scroll in her pocket. A glance at the clock revealed that there were forty-five minutes left in the lecture.

By the time it was over, Weiss hadn't written anything else.

It was only once she, Jaune, and Blake had taken their seats in Goodwitch's classroom that they saw Cardin for the first time that day. He strutted in like he owned the place, just on the right side of tardy, and sat as far away from his team as he could get. The four of them had been told twice now that they had to stay together in the stands, so that they could enter the arena more quickly and avoid wasting time. Weiss was just glad that there was one less person sitting near her.

"I'm sure you all know the drill by now," Goodwitch said briskly. "Today will be doubles matches. I'm changing things up—instead of partners, I'll be randomly selecting two from each team."

"And four from ours," Blake grumbled under her breath.

Weiss wanted to snap at her, but about half a minute later she turned out to be right. "Yang and Nora?!" Jaune whined. "What the heck did we do to deserve this?"

"Do you want me to answer that," Weiss asked, standing up and folding her arms, "or should we spend our time more productively instead? Like, say, strategizing."

"Don't get hit by Yang," Blake said, shrugging. "Really don't get hit by Nora."

"I'm gonna spend the whole match doing a pinball impression, aren't I?" Jaune heaved a sigh and wearily opened his shield.

As team ABSW joined up in the arena, most of its members from one side and Cardin from the other, Jaune started mumbling under his breath. It took a moment for Weiss to realize he was talking to them and not himself. "Maybe Cardin and I can run at one of them, try to separate and distract them. Probably... uh... ah, geez, there's no answer to this that doesn't leave me one giant bruise by tomorrow, is there?"

"Probably not," Blake said, without sympathy.

"Um... Nora, then. If we survive the first hit we'll probably be far enough away she'll have to chase us down."

Weiss resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. _"That's_ your strategy?"

"If you have a better idea," Blake snapped, "feel free to share."

"I suppose its marginally better than _don't get hit."_

"Not now," Jaune groaned. "Anyway, Weiss and Blake? You can double-team Yang. Try to work together, like at the end of the match against Pyrrha and Ruby." Weiss cringed at the memory. "Cardin, you get all that?"

"Sorry," he sneered. "I don't speak loser."

"Cardin," Weiss growled, eyes narrowing. "If you drop the ball right now, so help me I will hunt you down and hang you from the CCT tower with your _own intestines."_

"Okay." Jaune blinked several times. "That got really violent, really fast—"

"Ready," Goodwitch called out.

"—and, uh, take it out on Yang and Nora?"

"Begin!"

ABSW advanced cautiously, to the tune of several snickers in the audience. Weiss resisted the urge to look up and memorize their faces. Nora and Yang stayed put for a while, with the former limbering up her warhammer and the latter apparently bracing herself for an attack.

"Batter up!" Yang said cheerfully. Nora hefted her hammer, twisted around, swung with her entire body—and hit Yang.

Weiss had about half a second to feel bewildered horror before a human projectile barreled into her and Blake, sending them skidding and bouncing halfway across the arena. Yang got to her feet before they did and started shooting—she'd been _expecting_ that, the lunatic!

A barrier glyph shielded Weiss and Blake. They glanced at each other.

"I'll go high," Blake said.

Weiss didn't have time to protest—to say, perhaps, that she could speed Blake up and then try to flank, which might be a bit less risky. Instead she was forced to follow, skimming over glyphs as she charged Yang head-on. Upon close inspection, she appeared to be on fire.

Upon even closer inspection, this was _not_ purely a cosmetic change. A punch clipped Weiss' right shoulder with the force of a charging bull, and she crashed to the floor in an ungainly heap. A barrier appeared above her and bought time for her to roll to her feet. Yang's eyes glowed red. Unsettling.

A buzzer went off. Weiss muttered a few words she really, _really_ hoped Professor Goodwitch wouldn't catch. The only question was whether it had been Jaune or Cardin. The answer didn't matter much—either way, with only one of them distracting Nora ABSW wasn't going to have a numbers advantage much longer.

Yang had the nerve to smirk. Fuming, Weiss used another glyph to dash around behind her—or, tried to. Blake had the same idea, apparently, because they nearly bumped into one another and Weiss had to dive sideways to avoid a collision. She bounced back to her feet, ears burning, as students in the audience laughed. Her grip on her rapier tightened until the tip shook.

Suddenly everything seemed very, very simple. Yang was on fire. That meant fire and ice would both be of somewhat dubious effectiveness. Weiss switched to earth, and ran her fingers up the tip of her blade to imbue it with the effect.

"Duck," she said. Instead, her partner froze in front of Yang, only to be slammed into the floor. She disappeared, dissolving into shadow, and another Blake hooked her weapon around Yang's ankle and pulled. Her eyes widened as she fell, and Weiss stabbed her blade into the ground.

"Nora!" Yang shouted. Nora turned from where she was fending off Cardin, cocked her head, then smashed her hammer into his back. He went flying towards them, and Weiss had to cut off the effect early to avoid being knocked flat _again._ Even so, Yang was enveloped in a massive fist of stone and lifted into the air, struggling helplessly.

"Three on one, for now," Blake said.

"Keep Nora from smashing it," Weiss ordered her—and also Cardin, but she didn't hold out much hope of him listening.

Blake rushed forward to do just that, then started backpedaling frantically as Nora swung at her head, then her chest, then one of her legs. The last connected, and she went sprawling. Cardin jumped over her, swung his mace, and was smashed in the chest and borne painfully to the ground. The buzzer sounded.

"This is fun!" Nora declared, swinging her hammer in a wide arc that nearly took Weiss' head off. She decided she really wanted to be elsewhere and propelled herself behind her opponent with a few more glyphs. Blake stepped in to block the way to Yang's prison, then yelped as she was caught with another wild swing. Digging in her heels, she slid halfway across the arena before coming to a stop near the stone hand.

"Hey!" Yang wriggled ineffectually. "Getting bored up here!"

"Gotcha covered!" Nora, quite cheerfully and with zero apparent regard for teammate's safety, shot a grenade at her. Yang's eyes widened as the pink canister impacted the wrist of Weiss' stone hand and detonated. Both she and a shower of debris fell to earth with a thunderous roar.

Weiss risked a glance at her scroll. Both Blake and Yang were dangerously low, and she and Nora weren't much better. She glanced down at her sword hilt, then felt herself smile for the first time in a while.

"Blake!" she hissed, jogging up to her partner. "I need to hold onto your weapon. When it's time, pull me back."

"How will I know when it's—"

The glyph Weiss had been expanding behind her hit critical mass and propelled her forward towards Nora at frankly irresponsible speeds. She dragged her blade against the ground as she went, leaving a trail of fire in her wake. Then, just as the effect started to get away from her, Blake tugged on the weapon in her hand and she was yanked to a sudden halt.

Nora tried to dive out of the way, but the effect had rather a lot more momentum than was normal for Myrtenaster and she wasn't quite fast enough. Her aura dipped sharply, but didn't pass into the red.

Weiss glanced back at where Yang was advancing on them. She was still on fire—if anything, there were more flames now than there had been before. If she and Nora came at them from both sides, they might win. That was unacceptable.

With that in mind, Weiss traced a trail of glyphs leading towards Yang and darted along it. She twisted her rapier, shooting a few shards of ice at her knees and elbows. One arm was caught, but... well, the trap wouldn't last long in all that fire.

"Blake," she called out. "I need a boost—"

Blake wasn't there. She'd focused on Nora, and was carefully circling around her, dodging sweeps of her hammer and waiting for an opening. That wasn't going to _help,_ neither of them were well-suited for the sorts of direct brawls that team BRYN seemed to favor. She just needed a little boost so that she could get behind Yang, where a pool of melted icewater was growing steadily. Freeze _that..._

But no. Her partner was off somewhere else, ignoring one of their opponents. She grimaced, contemplating whether to just send her a haste glyph or something to speed this up—but there had to be a better way to get her attention.

Too late. Yang was upon her by that point, and it was all she could do to keep herself from being thrown across the room again. Ducking one blow, she dragged the point of her rapier across her opponent's cheek. She was rewarded with a solid kick to the stomach, and backed away.

"Weiss!" Blake shouted. "What are you doing? We need to focus on—"

There was a clash behind her of metal on metal, but Weiss had the impression that if she turned to look she would feel something very heavy and fist-shaped connecting with the back of her head. Then a buzzer sounded, and a panicked glance told her that it was for Blake. Yang cracked her knuckles. Weiss narrowed her eyes, then spun to ice dust.

Laughing, Yang beckoned at her. Weiss made as though to lunge—then turned on her heel and shot at Nora. A little crust of ice sprung up around her foot, and she took an impressive tumble that landed her face-down on the arena floor. Weiss, by now far too battered to think about things like sportsmanship, ran up to her while she was recovering and slashed at her.

Yang descended on her just as Nora was knocked into the red. Weiss parried the first left hook, leaned away from a jab. She then tripped over something—which turned out to be Cardin—and took the third punch right to her jaw. Her aura shattered.

Panting hard and flushed with success, Yang bent down to offer a hand. Weiss glared at her and got up on her own. Then she turned and stalked back to the stands. Goodwitch offered her opinion on their fight. Weiss tried to write it down, but found that the page was too blurry and she hadn't really heard properly anyway. Instead she sat, trying to breathe normally, while Jaune muttered something under his breath. She caught the words _Cardin_ and _impossible._

The class seemed to drag on longer than two hours. Weiss fidgeted in her seat as pair against pair fought—most were on relatively even ground, but a particularly unfortunate two faced off against Ren and Pyrrha and were demolished so thoroughly that even Goodwitch seemed to have trouble coming up with helpful notes. When their session was finally over, she was already dreading spending the evening in the library, trying to find an assignment she hadn't finished yet.

What _actually_ happened was worse. Professor Goodwitch told them to stay behind, and the four of them watched as everyone else left the classroom. Then they watched each other, shooting accusing looks and scowling. Goodwitch heaved a sigh. It was so unlike her that Weiss snapped to attention without even meaning to. Green eyes swept over each of them in turn. "Would any of you care to guess why we select teams the way we do?"

"You mean randomly?" Blake asked.

"Yes."

"Because Ozpin couldn't be bothered pulling names out of a hat?" Cardin shrugged. "How should we know?"

"Hunters don't always get to choose who they work with," Weiss answered, shooting him a glare.

Goodwitch nodded. "That is true, though it isn't the whole reason—we do it to prove a point."

"Uh, what?" Jaune blinked at her.

"Generally speaking, almost _any_ group of four can eventually work through their differences and form a cohesive unit. We think that demonstrates that people aren't so incompatible as many might believe, and that cooperation is always possible."

Jaune hung his head. "I'm sensing a but, here."

"Indeed. There have been cases—very _rare_ cases—when random chance results in a team that simply cannot function."

"And that's us," Blake concluded.

"I hope not." Goodwitch rubbed at her temple with one hand. "I could not in good conscience send the four of you out to complete a real mission as you are now. You don't have the kind of team unity necessary to survive and do your job perfectly—you would be risking your own lives and the lives of innocents."

"But we—" Weiss started.

"This is _not_ a final decision," Goodwitch said, interrupting her. Weiss bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from shouting at her professor. Was it that hard to just let someone _finish talking?!_

"What do you mean?" asked Jaune.

"I'm giving you an ultimatum. If the four of you can't get your act together soon, we'll have to dissolve your team."

Weiss gaped, struggling to form a rebuttal. All this, and it would just... just _collapse_ because some idiot thought it would be a good idea to put her, Blake, and Cardin on the same team?! The skin around her left eye prickled.

Jaune seemed similarly speechless, but Blake was wearing an expression somewhere between disgust and relief. _She doesn't even care._ And Cardin...

"What?!" he shouted, stepping forward. "We're _all_ going to get kicked out because some of us are useless fighters?"

"Your combat performance is a _symptom,_ Mr. Winchester," Goodwitch snapped. "If it were that alone, there would be plenty of possible uses for your team—guarding smaller villages with relatively low Grimm populations, for instance. You are in danger of being dissolved because you are constantly at each others' throats, and your very presence would draw more Grimm than you could possibly hope to put down."

 _Worse than useless, in other words._ Weiss glared at Goodwitch, then at her shoes. "Is that all?" she heard herself ask. She very much wanted to leave now.

"You have time to fix this," Goodwitch said. "All you need to do is be willing to let go of your pride and _work together."_ At this, she made a point to meet Weiss' eyes, as well as Blake's and Cardin's. Jaune, she couldn't help but notice, had been spared.

Blake made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort and walked out. Cardin rounded on Goodwitch. "That's so stupid!" he said indignantly. "I didn't even do anything!" Weiss' hand balled into a fist—if she punched him now, Goodwitch very well might change her mind about giving them more time. She'd also probably bruise her hand on his _thick skull._ Instead she whirled around and stalked out of the room, making sure to keep her steps even and unhurried. Her face was turned away from the others, which was good, because she honestly had no idea what her expression looked like.

Her partner was nowhere to be seen when she left the arena. Weiss glanced around, turned down a corridor at random, then slumped against the wall. They were free for several hours before History. People could be walking around. She didn't want to talk to anyone. It was the same sort of aversion she might have felt towards jumping into a pit of Deathstalkers.

Not knowing where else to go, Weiss made her way towards the library. She moved slowly, purposefully, in case someone walked by and saw her. Her hands were shaking, so she gripped the hilt of her sword with one and balled the other into a fist. An angry posture. Good.

Her scroll buzzed. She had to stop for a moment as her thoughts dissolved into white noise, and when she looked it was just a text from Jaune.

> >> cardin has detention

She tuned the scroll off and stashed it in her pocket.

More than once, she passed small clusters of students on her way to the library. At one point she recognized some of them—team RSPR, minus Ren. Ruby was talking a mile a minute while Pyrrha smiled warmly and Sky stared at her like she had just pulled a Goliath out of a hat. Weiss turned her head and sped up, avoiding eye contact.

The library was silent and still, full of the smell of books and dim, soothing light. Dove was standing near one shelf, brushing his thumb across each spine in turn. Weiss started scoping out a good corner, only to see Blake seated near the far wall. She ducked back out. The hallway was too wide, too long, and far too open. Students were milling about at the other end, and one of them shrieked and started slapping another before dissolving into laughter.

No. Weiss turned around and walked through a random door, turning corners as fast as she could find them. Then she saw the courtyard out the window and found her way outside. That was worse. It was still springtime and there were people everywhere, training or eating or sitting together and talking. She glowered at the few who glanced at her, and they looked away quickly.

Finally she wandered into a small forested area—not the Emerald Forest, but only because it was on the wrong side of the cliffs. The trees were likely the same. She let her back hit one of their trunks and caught her breath. When she relaxed her right hand from where it had been clenched in a fist, there were little crescent-shaped creases where her nails had dug in.

Feeling oddly calm, she drew Myrtenaster and studied the blade, watching the light slide up and down its length. Then she spun the chamber, drew her fingers along the rapier, and slashed out. A column of flame demolished the tree she'd been leaning on. It didn't make her feel better—now the air smelled like ash rather than earth and moss.

ABSW wouldn't come together. Jaune had tried, Weiss and Blake had been dragged into game nights and dinners and just about everything short of trust falls. Nothing worked. They were done.

Weiss would probably be going home, soon. She touched the scar on her eye. She'd sworn to her father she could make it at Beacon. She'd sworn to Winter she'd learn to be strong. She'd sworn to _herself_ that it would all be worth it to escape, to find whatever it was that had been at Atlas Academy for Winter. Then she'd been stuck with an earnest but incompetent leader, a haphazard collection of all the worst qualities of men as a sex, and a partner who seemed to disagree with her purely for the fun of it.

Now she'd have to come crawling back with her tail between her legs. Imagining what Father might say made her skin crawl, and it would only be worse because he'd be _right._ None of that really compared to what Winter might think. Would she be disappointed, because Weiss hadn't been able to make it in Beacon the way she had in Atlas? Even if she wasn't... Weiss would be stuck in the manor like Whitley, whiling away the time, seeing her sister only very briefly when she had leave and decided to subject herself to Father's company. All the time, knowing that she'd tried her hardest, reached out for something crucial she knew she was missing but couldn't quite name, and failed.

No.

That was _unacceptable._ Weiss sheathed Myrtenaster and drummed her fingers on its hilt. She'd have to do something, _anything._ Jaune had tried, he'd tried until he'd been ready to tear his hair out, but... could she say she had?

Not until she did something insane. Tried things she hadn't wanted to—like asking for help. Jaune was probably out, since he'd already done what he could. That left Dove as pretty much the only other person that might be willing to talk to her.

Thus decided, Weiss turned on her heel and started marching back to Beacon with her back straight and her head held high. She was going to make her team work, even if she had to beat them into line herself. To start... Jaune was fine as far as negativity went. Cardin was probably a lost cause.

In that case... she was going to make friends with Blake Belladonna or _die trying._

* * *

Dove yawned, catlike, poking his tongue out as his jaw stretched wide. Then he shook his head, trying to wake himself up. He'd been up early this morning, mostly because he had developed a not-so-irrational fear of leaving his teammates alone for too long, even when he was unconscious. Ren was watching them, now, so he was taking the time to relax.

On his lap, _Turquoise and_ _Cressida_ was opened to somewhere around the middle. He'd stuck a finger into the spine to keep it open, and was propping his chin up with his other hand. His eyes scanned back and forth while his ears took in the gentle scratching of a far-off pen, the swish and flick of pages from Blake's direction, the heeled footsteps— _approaching_ footsteps. He looked up, puzzled. Yang and Nora's shoes didn't click that much, who—?

Weiss stared at him, arms folded. "Can I help you?" he asked, dearly hoping the answer was no.

She didn't seem much surer of what she was doing there than he was. After a moment's hesitation she seemed to make up her mind, and a steely, slightly deranged look that was _far_ too reminiscent of Nora came into her eyes. Dove lurched to his feet, ready to bolt, but she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him bodily from the library. Out of respect for the other patrons, he chose not to struggle until they were safely outside.

The second they were out the door, he yanked his arm free. "What are you doing?"

"I need help."

Dove did a double take. "You... oh. Do you need to borrow my textbook again?"

Weiss arched an eyebrow. "Why would I drag you out _here_ for that?!"

He'd been hoping that she had an answer to that. "What do you need, then?"

There was a moment's pause, while she shifted from foot to foot with a sort of discomfort he could only describe as awkwardness. It was so bizarre he began to wonder if Nora had spiked his food. Weiss tried a few times— "I was... well, I was _thinking..._ and I don't really... I'm not sure..."

Dove coughed pointedly. "I don't know how to make friends!" she burst out, glaring at him as if daring him to laugh. He didn't—he wanted to go back to reading after this, not spend the night sleeping off a grievous injury in the infirmary. Instead he let his head fall forward and put a palm over his face.

"What makes you think I'd be able to help with that?"

"You made friends with Brine, didn't you?!"

"I didn't make friends with Brine, they dragged me into their nonsense until I couldn't help but like them. It's more Stockholm Syndrome than social skill."

"But..."

Weiss looked stricken. Dove sighed. "I'll talk to them, okay?"

"What?!"

"I won't mention your name," he assured her, spreading his hands wide. "I'll just ask around. I can make it seem like it's one of those, 'a friend wanted to know' things where it's really the person asking that needs the advice, if you like."

"That seems... satisfactory."

"Good." He paused, tapping his chin a few times. "Though... I will point out that making friends doesn't usually involve constantly shouting at one another like Alabaster does."

She glared at him. "If you're not going to help, then go away."

"And that's another thing I'd try to avoid," he said, smirking. She huffed at him, turned on her heel, and stalked away. Dove watched her go, trying to figure out who he knew that was good at talking to people and making friends. Someone sane, of course, which meant RSPR... of whom Ruby had blown up Weiss, Pyrrha had apparently nailed Jaune to a tree, and Ren had spoken a full sentence in Dove's presence maybe once. That left Sky, who didn't seem like the charismatic type. Perhaps it would be better to ask his team, after all.

...Weiss was going to owe him for this. The teasing would be awful.

* * *

"Are you sure we shouldn't just move on to phase two?" Ruby asked, kicking aimlessly at a stone as they wandered through yet another run-down street that reeked of fish. It was their third evening spent wandering haplessly through the docks in search of Roman Torchwick, and even Ren seemed bored.

"Humor me for a couple more hours?" Sky begged. "I'm just... I'm really not sure about this, but if we see something that confirms it..."

"Like what?" Ren asked—not unkindly, exactly, but Sky still felt his ears reddening.

"I'm not sure, but... it's just a hunch right now."

Pyrrha frowned. "Perhaps it's not enough to go to the authorities yet, but we could talk to Brine. If nothing else, we'd have more people out and about."

"Well, yeah..."

Ruby poked him in the shoulder. "Why are you _really_ stalling? It's not because Brine won't believe us, is it?"

"No."

She gave him a _look._ Not a disapproving look, but a pleading one. Sky crumpled like an origami swan in a washing machine.

"Fine," he whined. "I don't want to get everyone involved and then find out that he was actually aiming for the opposite side of the city!"

Pyrrha clapped him on the shoulder. "It's a good idea, Sky. Even if it doesn't bring us right to his front doorstep, it's still our best lead."

"I know..."

"Yeah!" Ruby agreed, doing a little skip-hop as she walked. "If it doesn't work, we just try something else. No harm done, right?"

"I know..."

"We trust your judgment," Ren said, nodding solemnly.

"I know!" Sky moaned. "That's what's scary!"

"Pfft!" Ruby shook her head and giggled. "What, are you scared of acting silly in front of us? I blew someone up on my first day! Pyrrha nailed Jaune to a tree! And Ren... uh... I mean, he probably did something embarrassing. Once. Maybe?"

"I've had my off-days."

Sky managed a weak grin. "Thanks, guys."

"No problem!" Ruby beamed proudly at him. "And, you know, if you ever want to get even on embarrassment, Yang can totally hook you up. She has baby pictures."

"What kinds of—"

"All of them. Just... all of them."

He sighed. "Okay, well... how about we just finish up tonight? I mean, we're already out here."

"Sure!" Ruby patted him on the shoulder. "Just a few more hours and we'll be—"

"Someone's following us," Ren said suddenly.

Sky nearly fell over. "Wait, _what?"_

"Over there." He pointed, and Sky caught a flash of reddish-orange hair that immediately disappeared behind a nearby building.

"Wait." Pyrrha squinted at where their stalker had been. "Was that... Nora?"

"If it was," Ren replied, "She's about to have a lot of explaining to do." With that, he marched towards the mystery girl's hiding spot. Sky and the others hurried after him.

He reached the corner of the building, snaked his hand around, and pulled. "Nora, if you wanted to come with us you could've just—huh?"

Someone who most definitely wasn't Nora stared back at him. "Um... salutations!"

Sky stared at her. Pyrrha and Ruby stared at her. Even Ren dropped her arm and _stared_ at her.

"Do... do we know you?" Ren asked, after a long moment.

"I'm not sure," the girl replied brightly. "You called me Nora, but that's not my name."

"Your hair looks kind of like hers," Ruby explained. "But if you're not Nora, um... why were you following us?"

The girl blushed... _green?_ "Oh! I noticed the four of you were friends, and I thought I could study your interactions."

Sky stared harder. Ruby, though, seemed to relax at that. "Aw, yeah I've been there."

"Been where?"

"Y'know," Ruby said, fidgeting a little with her hood. "Not really knowing how to talk to people."

"I could explain the rules of grammar, if you would like," the girl offered helpfully. Sky stared _even harder._

"How about you tell us your name? I'm Pyrrha Nikos." She held out her hand, smiling.

"My name is Penny. It's a pleasure to meet you!" Penny stuck out her own hand. She didn't take Pyrrha's.

"The pleasure is ours," Ren said, gently nudging their hands together so that they could shake. "I'm Ren."

"Ruby!"

Someone elbowed Sky in the side. "What?"

"Salutations Pyrrha, Ren, Ruby, and What!"

"Uh, it's Sky," Sky told her. "Why do you blush green?"

"Sky!" Ruby hit him again. "You can't just ask people that!"

"It's a valid question!"

"I have... a vitamin deficiency," Penny said. She hiccupped.

"And you were following us to... make observations."

She nodded, smiling guilelessly.

"You don't need to do that!" Ruby grinned back. "You can just be friends with us!"

_Wait, what?!_

"Really?" Penny's glass-green eyes went huge.

Ren nodded. "Practice is always better than observation."

"We'd love to have you," Pyrrha agreed.

They turned to Sky. "Uh... the more the merrier, I guess."

"This is..." Penny seemed stunned. "This is sensational!" She hugged the nearest person, who happened to be Pyrrha. Sky swore he heard her spine creak, and she yelped for the first time since he'd met her. He backed away a step. Ruby and Ren both accepted their fates without so much as a wince. He supposed that being sisters slash lifelong friends with Yang and Nora would do that to a person. Sky hid behind Pyrrha.

"Oh!" Ruby smacked herself on the forehead. "I guess we should probably keep looking around, though."

"What are you looking for, Ruby my friend?" Penny asked.

"Well, we think Roman Torchwick might be planning a robbery near here," Ruby explained, "so we're going to look around for any clues about shops he might want to hit."

Penny cocked her head curiously. "Are you the proper authorities?" she asked.

"Um, well... no, but we're Hunters in training! And, I mean, we weren't gonna just jump in and try to fight him right now."

Sky nodded. "We have some friends that we'll be bringing in if nothing turns up, which experience tells me it won't—" An alarm, followed by a series of shrieks, sounded somewhere in the distance. Sky realized that experience was a lying liar who lied.

"I think it's coming from over there." Ruby pointed.

"Wait!" Sky blurted, feeling the blood drain from his face. "I thought we weren't going to jump into anything without Brine?!"

"Normally I'd agree," Ren said, "but someone might be in danger. We should at least look and see what's going on."

Pyrrha nodded and pulled her scroll out of her pocket. "I'll call our weapons."

"But—" Sky didn't get far. Their lockers landed in a rough diamond shape, each creaking open to reveal their weapons. His armor, on the other hand, was still back in Beacon—since it was only a scouting mission, they'd put together more casual outfits to walk around Vale in. His hand shook as he wrapped it around his halberd.

"Stay here!" Ruby told Penny. "We've got this."

"I'm combat ready!" Penny insisted, and started running towards the disturbance. The rest of them hurried to catch up, with Sky lagging far behind until the others slowed to a stop almost three blocks away.

"Hang on!" He protested, the second he was close enough. "We can't just—"

Pyrrha clamped a hand over his mouth. He froze, staring wide-eyed at a nearby Dust shop. Its front window display was shattered, and a gray-haired shopkeeper was lying dazed on the pavement in front. Ruby moved as if to run to him, but Ren grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back behind the nearest building.

"Wait," he whispered. "Look."

It was Roman Torchwick. Of _course_ it was Roman Torchwick. Of course he decided to break his pattern by showing up early, instead of by robbing a Dust shop _literally anywhere else_ so that Sky and his team wouldn't get caught up in it. Sky whimpered.

"This was fun," Roman said, stepping through the broken window. He was twirling his bowler hat on his finger. Sky felt his whole body go rigid when he realized that Torchwick _wasn't alone._ There was a girl with him, shorter even than Ruby, with a parasol leaning on one shoulder. Behind them a few goons were loading Dust into boxes and carting them out of the store.

"We can't just let him do that," Ruby pleaded. Penny nodded fervently.

Ren hesitated. "We don't know anything about that girl. As of right now, all that's lost if he gets away is a bit of Dust, I don't know if we should risk our lives—"

Roman raised his cane towards the shopkeeper. "Sorry," he said, not sounding very sorry at all, "but I'd rather not have witnesses."

Ruby vanished, not waiting to consult the others. It didn't really matter, though—the other three all charged without any more protest, even the _completely unarmed_ Penny. Sky stood for a moment, frozen, his hands trembling.

 _Move,_ he told himself. Ruby crashed into Roman, tackling him away from the shopkeeper with a cry. The old man scrambled back, then bolted.

"You again!" Roman groaned. "Little Red, someone _really_ needs to teach you not to stick your nose where it's not wanted."

Sky inched backwards so that he was hidden behind a nearby building. Roman hadn't seen him. He stared at his feet, willing them to move. This was it, this was what he'd been training for—except it wasn't, he was supposed to be learning to fight _Grimm,_ humans had Auras and he'd lost to Jaune in the arena and he had no idea what he was even supposed to contribute to this fight.

Slowly, he peered back around the corner of the shop. Ruby and Pyrrha were circling Roman, prodding at him with their weapons and forcing him to retreat. Penny had done... _something,_ because there were swords floating around there that definitely hadn't been there before, and they were taking stabs at Torchwick from bizarre, unpredictable angles. The girl with the parasol, on the other hand... Ren was parrying frantically as she danced around him. He turned for a moment, and Sky's eyes locked with his partner's.

Sky turned and ran. He stumbled on the uneven cobblestones, nearly knocking over a green-haired girl, and dropped his halberd. Gunshots were going off behind him. He didn't look back.


	12. First Impressions [9]

Ren had no idea who he was fighting. He had no idea what her semblance was, or how she might react to any given move, or whether or not there was more to her weapon than just a parasol. What he did know was that she was, without a doubt, the single most _irritating_ opponent he'd ever faced.

He ducked a swing of her weapon, then followed up with a series of jabs. She dodged all of them. While smirking. He turned to look back towards where his partner had been and grimaced.

"Penny!" he called out. "Could you—" Ren didn't get to finish, because the girl he was fighting chose that moment to bash him over the head with her parasol. He had to fight to keep his balance—that thing hit harder than it should've, considering its apparent weight.

"I can help!" Penny abandoned the fight with Torchwick and launched herself at Ren's opponent. A quick glance told him that Pyrrha and Ruby were fine—the thief was cursing under his breath, too busy defending himself against two opponents at once to return fire. It was a matter of time before he went down.

"Where's Sky?" Ruby asked between blows.

Ren replied with a terse, "Gone."

"What?"

"He left." Parasol Girl froze for a moment, looking towards where Sky had been. Ren lunged at her, but she slipped back and then circled around him. He started to turn, then cried out as he was struck across his back. Something hooked around his foot and pulled him off-balance so that he landed face-first on the ground. When he rolled over, he saw his opponent pulling a blade from inside the umbrella, eyes gleaming.

Penny struck out with a halo of floating blades, intercepting her before she could bring the sword down. Ren rolled hastily to his feet. Then, behind him, he heard Ruby yelp. He twisted around, and watched as she lunged at empty air—while Torchwick lined up a shot and fired. Pyrrha slammed into him with her shield, knocking him away just in time to disrupt his aim. Then she stepped back, head turning away from him, and let him land a hit across her jaw.

_What—?_

"Friend Ren," Penny said, "We should focus on our own opponent!"

He looked back and found that she had a very good point. Parasol Girl was dancing around her, slashing with the sword in one hand and blocking with the other half of the umbrella in the other. She didn't seem to mind, though—every attack was met with one of her floating blades, and there were too many of them for the girl to block. She took a nasty hit to the shoulder even as he watched, and backed away with her umbrella held towards Penny like a shield. Ren leapt into the fray, aiming for the enemy's back. Then he turned around, baffled. He'd missed completely, and before he could recover her sword dragged across the back of his neck. His Aura saved him, but he had to retreat to avoid a series of vicious slashes.

"Pomegranate!" Ruby shouted.

"What are you talking ab— _ow!_ You little brats!" Torchwick sounded angry. _Good._

"Apple!"

Ren aimed a kick at Parasol Girl's head. It connected, and he followed up with a slash towards her exposed side. Then, Ruby screamed. His head whipped around just in time to see the telltale flash of her Aura as it shattered under a heavy blow from Tochwick's cane. He laughed. Pyrrha put herself in front of her partner with an expression that was downright murderous.

Then Ren had to turn around again, because Parasol Girl was barely giving him any time to breathe. Penny helped him on that front, and he managed to position himself so that they were flanking their opponent. Now they just needed to—

One of Penny's swords slammed into his gut with the force of a runaway train. He made a pathetic huffing noise as the air left his lungs, then keeled over onto the ground and landed into a heap. His own Aura fizzled out.

"Ren!" Pyrrha reached out towards him, but couldn't move without letting Torchwick shoot at Ruby. Penny was staring at him, horrified, ignoring Parasol Girl completely.

"I'm so sorry!" she blurted. "I thought..."

Torchwick laughed. "Man, you kids have _got_ to work on your aim. Say—er, not-so-little Red. Think you could move a little to the left?"

To Ren's horror, Pyrrha's head turned—and with it, her shield. "Don't!" he yelled. She didn't so much as look at him. _Torchwick's semblance? Some kind of mind-control?_

"Well, I have to admit," the thief gloated, raising his cane, "that is _neat!"_ Ren forced himself to his feet, stumbled, then took a few haphazard steps towards Torchwick. He collapsed just behind him, his hand wrapping around the man's ankle. He looked down, raising an eyebrow, then kicked out. Stars erupted in Ren's vision, and for a moment everything went blurry. A gunshot rang out.

When his eyes focused again, Penny was standing in front of Torchwick with her arms outstretched. A patch of skin on her left shoulder had been torn away, revealing... nothing. No blood, only a glint of metal.

"Um..." she said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "I..."

Torchwick lowered his cane for a moment and stared at her. "Huh. That's new."

Penny backed up a step, looking around frantically. Ren tried to push himself to his feet, then collapsed when Torchwick gave him another kick—this time to the shoulder. She stopped backing away. Her eyes narrowed.

"I don't like you very much," she decided. The blades that had previously been orbiting her condensed into a tight ring, and light began to glow in its core.

Torchwick just laughed. "That's not nice. I think I'd rather you shot _her—_ " he pointed at Pyrrha.

"Penny!" Ren yelled, though he knew it was pointless. "Don't shoot!"

"It's alright," Pyrrha assured him. "He's right there, she can't miss!"

"I think it's his semblance! He'll do something—"

Penny turned—slowly, inexorably. Pyrrha's eyes went wide, and she dived towards Ruby. Torchwick took the opportunity to shoot her, but her Aura took the brunt of the attack. Ren grabbed his leg again and yanked.

"Would you just—ugh—give it up already?!" Torchwick shook his foot frantically, trying to loosen his fingers. Then he kicked again, and Ren took the opportunity to pull while he was off-balance. He went down in a heap, cursing.

The sound of a blade being drawn made Ren look up. Parasol Girl was standing over him, grinning. He tried to push himself out of the way— _he'd promised to do that much at least, to claw and fight and never give up—_ but the weapon was coming down and Penny was aiming unerringly at Pyrrha and it had all gone _so wrong—_

And then, there was _fire._ Ren heard a thunderous roar, then a wave of blistering heat, and then... nothing. He twisted around to look above him and found that Parasol Girl had backed off, flourishing her umbrella in front of her. And, standing at the end of the street...

"Professor Oobleck?" Ren blurted, staring at the man as if he'd just... well, saved their lives.

"Ah! Students!" He bowed. "My deepest apologies for not arriving sooner! I was still at Beacon when I got word you were here."

"That's... irritating," Torchwick said, flipping his cane around and leaning on it casually. "I don't suppose you'd just... let us leave, would you?"

"Most certainly not!" Oobleck glared at him. "I tend to take offense to people attempting to _murder my students."_

"Why, thank you." Roman tipped his hat and walked away, pausing only to wink at something over Oobleck's shoulder. Ren watched helplessly, reaching out with one hand. Parasol Girl shot him a longing look, then followed her boss.

"Professor!" Pyrrha groaned. "They're getting away."

"What?!" Oobleck did a double take. "My word, where did they—but I suppose that isn't our priority at the moment."

"But..." Pyrrha turned to look at Ruby, who was still lying on the ground. Her shoulders slumped. "No. It isn't."

"Penny," Ren grunted, finally hauling himself to a sitting position. She wasn't looking at Professor Oobleck—instead she was standing hunched, a hand over her shoulder. Her green eyes were wide with fear. "It's alright," he soothed, putting his hands out. She bolted past him, and he didn't have the energy to give chase.

"Miss?" Oobleck stepped forward, then stopped. "Was she... one of Torchwick's?"

"No!" Pyrrha shook her head. "She helped us."

He nodded. "Then she's no threat to us. Miss Nikos? If you would help me..."

Pyrrha pulled Ruby's arm over one of her shoulders, and Oobleck took the other. Ruby herself was struggling to lift her head. "My everything hurts," she mumbled.

"Me too," Ren said, managing a weak chuckle.

Slowly, painstakingly, they made their way away from the shattered storefront. Onlookers stared at them as they passed. There was a man with a pair of wolf's ears, a blond child who asked Oobleck for an autograph, and a green-haired girl whose red eyes lingered on them long enough for it to feel uncomfortable.

Once they were past any civilians who'd been in the area, there were concerned questions and suspicious glances. Professor Oobleck ignored most of the bystanders, aside from asking one of them to take his place supporting Ruby. Once he was free, he fiddled with his scroll for a moment until Goodwitch appeared on the screen.

"Bart. What happened?"

"They're not seriously hurt, as far as I can see." He frowned. "Torchwick escaped."

Her jaw tensed. "Well. I suppose that's the best we could have hoped for. Let Raspberry know that they will be facing detention."

"What?" Ruby, who hadn't seemed to be paying that much attention to... well, anything, suddenly perked up. "But we were trying to help!"

"You put yourself and your team in danger," Goodwitch snapped. "Be glad that it's only detention, Miss Rose, and _not_ death or permanent injury."

Ren sped up for a moment so that he could look into the scroll. He did a double-take when he saw Sky peeking out from behind Goodwitch. The second their eyes met, his partner turned to stare at the floor.

Goodwitch sighed. "I'm glad you're all alive. Now, if you would kindly get _back here_ so that we can assess the damage?"

"Yes ma'am," Ruby mumbled, and Pyrrha echoed her. Ren nodded assent, then immediately regretted it when it made his head spin.

Oobleck hung up, and a long silence descended on their little group. Then he turned to them and smiled. "Well!" he said, clapping his hands together. "I suppose I should offer you an extension on tonight's homework."

"We had homework?!" Ruby blurted. Ren put a palm to his face.

* * *

Weiss Schnee wasn't hiding. She was just taking a walk through parts of Beacon she was reasonably sure that none of her teammates would be in. And jumping at vaguely Blake-shaped shadows.

It certainly wasn't because she was scared of her partner. Just... well, she didn't have even the faintest inkling of how to go about mending bridges when she'd spent years getting very good at burning them. And if she said the wrong thing _now,_ when their team was almost irreparably broken, there might not be time to figure out how to fix things before Goodwitch dissolved their team and her father decided to pull her out of Beacon.

She turned on her heel and stalked back the way she'd come, scattering a group of second-years and scowling so fiercely at one boy that he crossed the hallway to avoid her. It wasn't quite pacing, mostly because she wasn't using the same route. She was wandering aimlessly, occasionally stopping to make sure she wasn't anywhere between the library, the cafeteria, or their dorm.

Only when she strayed dangerously close to the library did she finally run into Dove. He was walking hurriedly, head panning back and forth, but she came around a corner at a bad time and bumped into him.

"There you are!" He gave her a polite smile. She found she wasn't capable of returning it, only of nervous fidgeting.

"Did you ask?"

Dove nodded. "My source will remain nameless."

"Ominous..."

He shrugged. "I didn't give out your name, did I?"

"So? What did they _say?"_

The corner of his mouth twitched. "You could stand to be a bit more polite, you know. I _am_ doing you a favor."

"You sound like Russel."

"Right." He coughed into his hand. "Anyway, here it is—mostly word for word. Apparently you have to build trust by starting small. Let the other person take notes for you, share hobbies, things that wouldn't bother you if they didn't follow through."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really. According to my source."

"Who you won't name."

"Correct. Over time you build up to bigger things, promises that would hurt a little if they were broken. Keep going until you're friends."

"That's it?"

"That, or almost die together a bunch of times."

Weiss gave him a _look,_ but he just shrugged. "Like I said. Mostly word for word."

"And this actually works?"

"It's not as if I've tried it. I don't make friends, they make _me_ jump off cliffs."

"The longer we talk," Weiss said, eyeing him suspiciously, "the more I question the wisdom of taking advice from you."

"It's a good thing it's not from me, then, isn't it?"

"Then why won't you just tell me who said it?!"

Dove raised an eyebrow. "I have an addendum for you. Not from my source—it's all me."

"What?"

"Just say thank you, next time." He chuckled, then turned and headed back down the hall.

"Thank you," she grumbled at his back. Then she was left alone, turning over this new information in her head.

It sounded awfully one-sided for her tastes. But she supposed that if the trust thing didn't work she could always try the last part. With that in mind she squared her shoulders, swallowed as much of her pride as she could, and promptly realized that while she now had an _approach_ to try, it had never specified a place to _start._

Fifteen minutes later she was standing in front of a coffee dispenser and scowling. Since she'd been avoiding Blake for the past... basically forever, she had no idea how much milk or sugar her partner would take. With that in mind, she guessed. Then threw out the resulting cup and tried again. Her fourth cup of coffee was deemed satisfactory—if only because she checked the time and realized that curfew was in less than an hour, and she might actually rather die than try to do this in front of Cardin. Thus armed, Weiss marched towards the library prepared for war.

Blake was in a far corner, hunched over a book. Weiss stood frozen in the doorway for a long moment. Then she chided herself for being _stupid_ and walked forward with her head held high. Her partner turned towards her, eyes narrowing. Her mouth opened. Weiss shoved the coffee between them like a shield.

"Here," she said, placing it on the table. Blake stared at it like it was a bomb. Then, slowly, one eyebrow quirked upward.

"What are you doing?"

Weiss had tried to rehearse this a few times, but then gave up when she realized that it kept coming out differently every time. She folded her arms across her chest. "We're supposed to be partners, right?"

"I think you've made it pretty clear you're not interested." Blake stared daggers at the coffee, and Weiss gave it a little push in her direction.

"I'm _saying_ that if we're going to stay here... we're going to have to work together. And in the interest of that..." she gestured at the cup. It was steaming invitingly. Blake didn't move to drink any.

"You... what, thought we could just ignore the past few weeks because _coffee?"_

_"Hardly."_ Weiss shifted from foot to foot, then went ramrod straight out of years of habit. "I think we need to start somewhere. I think... this isn't going to work unless we're both willing to bend a little."

Blake looked down at the coffee again, her brow furrowing. The silence dragged on, and Weiss grew irrationally irritated with the slightly off-beat ticking of a clock somewhere behind her. Then her partner relaxed a fraction.

"I prefer tea," she said bluntly. "With that said, the gesture is... appreciated." Weiss nodded.

"May I?" She pointed to the empty chair beside Blake.

Blake thought for a moment, then gestured for her to sit. She did so. That seemed to be about as far as either of them had planned ahead.

"How do you like your tea?" Weiss asked, more out of desperation than any real interest.

"Milk, no sugar." No elaboration was forthcoming.

"Any... favorite colors?"

There was a long, shocked pause. Then, slowly, Blake turned her head and stared at Weiss. "...Why?"

"I thought it might be useful information," Weiss lied. Blatantly.

_"Really."_ Blake smirked. "Will we need to color-code our pillowcases?"

"Ugh!" Weiss slapped a hand down on the table. "I panicked and copied Jaune, happy?!"

Blake laughed—it was a much softer sound than Weiss had expected. "He really asked you that?"

"Yes."

"What did you tell him?"

Weiss put her chin up. "I'd like the record to show that you've asked just as many inane questions as me, now."

"I thought we were two to one."

"What you put in your tea is hardly inane. After all, if the _wrong_ beverage got us talking..."

"I guess you're right."

Weiss did an exaggerated double-take. "Sorry, say that again?"

"Don't get used to it, princess."

"I already am."

Something flashed in Blake's eyes. "Of _course_ you are," she said acidly.

Weiss went rigid. "If you have something to say—"

"I have a _lot_ of things to say."

"What is your problem with me, anyway?! You've had it out from me since the start!"

"I met you when you were shouting at someone for an honest mistake, _remember?"_

"That was—she could have _killed_ us!"

"You were overreacting, just like you overreact to everything! And besides, at least half of that mess was your fault."

"How was that in any way my fault?"

Blake laughed. Maybe it was the harshness of the sound, the contrast between this and the gentler one she'd let slip before. Maybe Weiss was finally realizing how tense they both were, that her hand had clenched into a fist and was dangerously close to spilling the untouched coffee.

"Pause!" she blurted.

Her partner stared at her for a moment, livid—until something seemed to register. "I thought you hated that," she said suspiciously.

"I do." Weiss sighed. "But... I hate the idea of the team disbanding more."

"Does it matter?" Blake made a vague, frustrated gesture with one hand. "This has been a complete wreck from the start."

"I don't care. I just... need this to work. I'll _make_ it work, if I have to."

"Why? You could probably come back next year and get a different team. Even if you can't, there are other schools."

_"No._ It's... it has to be here. Now. If I don't fight for it this time, if I just give up... then maybe I'll keep doing that. And I'm _not_ doing that."

Blake seemed to digest that for a moment, sitting with her head cocked slightly to the side. Slowly, almost grudgingly, she nodded. Her hand extended.

"Purple," she said. Weiss paused for a moment, thrown, then managed a small, polite smile.

"Red."

They shook.

* * *

"You did what."

Ruby backed away a step, rubbing nervously at the back of her neck. "Um... well..."

"You did _what?"_

"It was an accident!"

_"You did what?!"_ Yang lunged forward and grabbed her sister in a headlock, then started knuckling her head.

"Hey! Lemme go!"

"Nuh-uh! You fought Torchwick? _Again?!"_

"Yang—Yang, _ow!_ Head wound!"

She let go in a heartbeat, then ran her fingers through her sister's hair to check for bumps. There was a cut near her temple, one that had been recently stitched up. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

Then she froze. "Why do you have a head wound?"

Ruby whimpered.

_"Ruby!_ What happened to your Aura?!"

"It was only down for like a minute!"

"A minute is a _long time_ in a fight!" Yang knelt down in front of her, checking for more injuries. There was a livid bruise on one shoulder and a smaller cut on the back of her left hand. "You could have—you could have _died,_ Ruby! What the hell?!"

"It wasn't like that!" Ruby squirmed a little when Yang pulled her hand closer to inspect the cut. "Seriously, Yang, you're being embarrassing!"

About three feet away, Nora was fussing over Ren's left eye, which had swollen halfway shut and turned a magnificent shade of purple. Then she circled around him a few times, poking and prodding. When he winced, she straightened up and put her hands on her hips. _"See?_ See what happens when you run off on your own like a... like a lone-wolfing jerk?! _Dove!"_

The boy in question yelped and stood to attention. "Where are the bandages?!" Nora demanded. He hurried into the bathroom, where Russel had been hiding for the past five minutes or so. "And get some ice!" she shouted after him.

When he returned, he handed Ren a bag of frozen peas, parceled some bandages out to Yang and Nora, and then offered the rest to Pyrrha. She shook her head, then looked to the floor. "My Aura didn't break."

"You know," Nora said dangerously, giving Ren the kind of evil-eye that would have made a lesser man keel over on the spot, "when she says stuff like that, it almost sounds like she's the _only one."_ He hung his head.

"Wait." Dove craned his neck to look past Pyrrha. "Where's Sky?"

All three members of RSPR froze. Yang felt her heart drop.

"He, um..." Pyrrha shifted from foot to foot.

"He left." Ren glanced towards the door. "That is to say, he ran away."

For a moment, Yang felt as though she was experiencing a slice of Ren's everyday existence, a profound calm that relaxed all her muscles and left her mind perfectly, blissfully clear. Then she marched out of the dorm with her hair swirling in her wake, already burning.

"Wha—Yang!" Ruby ran after her and grabbed her hand, digging in her heels to pull her back. "Wait a second!"

"Did you order him to go?!"

"Well, no..."

"Where is he?" Yang was dimly aware of Nora making a vague, violent gesture behind her—she took it to mean that her teammate would be staying with Ren but would very much like for one of Sky's limbs to be broken for her. Ruby had seen, and made a distressed mewling noise before giving her arm another pull.

"Yang, stop it! I mean, maybe he kinda ran off but he also called Professor Goodwitch and then she sent Professor Oobleck and if _he_ hadn't shown up then we probably would have died—"

Yang stopped dead. Ruby bumped into her, then gave her hand another ineffectual tug. Slowly, she turned around to face her little sister.

_"Would have died?!"_

"Eep!" Ruby backed up a bit and hid behind Pyrrha, who was still hovering nervously outside BRYN's dorm. "Maybe not? I mean, I was kind of out of it at the end there..."

_"Kind of out of it?!"_

"Pyrrha was protecting me!" Ruby protested. "Right Pyrrha?"

Yang glared at her sister's partner. Her green eyes were wide, and she was turning redder by the second. "Pyrrha..." she growled.

"That's—um, well... I was trying! And I would have, it's just that Ren thinks Torchwick's semblance might be some kind of mind control or—"

It was at about that point that Yang could actually feel herself losing all capacity for coherent thought. All she could really do was screech, _"Mind control?!"_ like a banshee and rush at Ruby.

Pyrrha tried to get in her way, and was shoved roughly sideways. Ruby tried to run, and was grabbed around the middle and pulled into a crushing hug. Yang buried her face in her shoulder, felt the fabric of her cloak against her forehead, and let out a shaky breath.

"You scare the crap out of me sometimes, you know that?" she said weakly.

Ruby patted her on the back. "Um... sorry."

"I might just handcuff the two of us together."

"That... would make sparring kinda hard."

"You're the only sister I've got, remember? You can't just..." Her voice failed.

"...Sorry."

"Ah, geez..." She rubbed circles on Ruby's back, felt her own heartbeat slow back down to something a bit less frantic. Then she stood up, keeping her arm around her little sister—her crazy, reckless, brave little sister who was going to give her a coronary someday. Her free hand wiped at her eye.

"We should probably stop before Alabaster thinks we're stealing their sitcom." She managed a chuckle.

Pyrrha was standing stiff as a board, her eyes fixed on what had to be the most fascinating floor tile in Beacon. On impulse, Yang hugged her too. She made a strangled, confused noise. "Thanks... for having her back."

Then she frowned. "And I guess I should thank... Penny? Who _is_ Penny?"

"Oh!" Ruby perked up at that. "We met her in the docks—and it was all a little bit weird because I think she's almost as bad at talking to people as I am, and we all thought she was Nora for a second because all we saw when she was following us was her hair."

Yang's eye twitched. "Please explain why a random girl was stalking you before you give me _another_ heart attack."

"She wanted to listen to us talk so she could learn how to make friends."

That probably made sense in some sort of weird, alternate universe—apparently the one Ruby lived in, and maybe also Jaune and the rest of RSPR—but Yang decided that as long as it wasn't malicious she didn't need to be able to fathom it. Instead she shrugged and went back into BRYN's room. Ruby seemed to be trying to step away from her. After a moment, she relented and let her go.

"So!" Nora was saying—declaring, really. "What did we learn today? _Ren."_

"No more running off to do dangerous things without you."

Russel raised his hand. "Um, does that include Dove and me?"

Yang stared at him. "I mean, do you want to stay in Beacon while the rest of us chase down wanted criminals?"

"Well, no. But I don't want to die either, and... uh..." he trailed off.

"We almost died," Ruby finished, wincing.

"Eight against two would be much better odds than four against two," Pyrrha pointed out.

"Uh, four?" Russel frowned. "Didn't Sky—"

Ren nodded. "He did, but we found a... er, plus one."

"Plus one?" Nora narrowed her eyes. "Who is this _plus one?"_

"Her name's Penny!" Ruby bounced on her heels a few times. "Her hair the same color as yours, so we almost thought she was you for a second but she's _way_ different. I mean she's short and kinda quirky and hits a lot harder than it looks like she should and... wait..."

Nora had gone from suspicious to downright furious. "You found another me?!"

"She used swords and lasers," Ren said. "That, and she seemed less... violent." Nora relaxed at that.

"That's okay, then," she decided. "She's not me if she's not ready to break a few legs to make an omelet!"

Ren chuckled. "This is why you're banned from the kitchen, Nora."

"I thought that was because I found out flour can be an explosive."

"That too."

Nora grinned, but only held it for a second before she turned serious. "Hey, Ren?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I come over to your dorm tonight?" He glanced up at the clock.

"I suppose it _is_ after eight." He tapped his chin a few times. "Although... I could always stay in Brine's, if no one else minds?" They shook their heads. Nora grabbed him in a hug.

It was at about that point that Ruby and Pyrrha said that they needed to go. Yang subjected her sister to another hug, ruffled her hair—while taking care not to aggravate her cut—and sent her on her way.

"I really will handcuff us together the next time something like this happens," she said, once Pyrrha and Ruby had left the room.

"You won't be alone!" Nora replied cheerfully. That seemed to make Ren a tad nervous.

"I mean, I know it's good for her to make new friends and have adventures and stuff without me, so that she can get out of her shell more... but _come on!"_

Dove plopped down on his bed with a heavy sigh. "You know, certain people have been giving this team a lot of grief, but I'd argue we're the sanest ones in Beacon."

Ren hummed thoughtfully. "I'm going to have to disagree with you, on the grounds that you four would definitely have done the same thing if the opportunity presented itself."

Dove didn't have any rebuttal to that.

"Speaking of!" Nora smacked a fist into her palm. "Next time you guys go after Torchwick, _sharing is caring!"_

"We were planning on telling you as soon as we had a better idea of where he might be," Ren admitted. "But Sky wanted to look around the area first, and... well, we ran into him when we weren't expecting it."

Yang clenched a fist. "I... have to go do something."

"It's past curfew," Dove warned her.

"Yeah, I know. I won't be out long." Before anyone else could argue, she walked out the door, heading... somewhere. Sky wouldn't be in RSPR's room, Ruby had said they'd only gotten back recently and he'd been with Professor Goodwitch then. If he was going to get to the dorms, he was going to have to pass through this hallway. With that in mind, she hung back out of sight around the corner and waited.

It didn't take long. She heard him long before she saw him, and it only took the sound of footsteps for her to know who he was. It wasn't like anyone else would be walking around in the dorm building this late. The second he turned the corner she was on him, grabbing him by the collar and shoving him against the nearest wall. He stared at her, frozen with shock and fear.

"I'm not happy with you," she said, her tone light and pleasant. He paled, but didn't speak. "See, I heard this funny story about you _abandoning_ your team, which happens to include my favorite little sister, in the middle of a fight with a wanted criminal who's already tried to kill her. So...?" He gaped like a fish, stuttered out a few nonsense syllables.

"Are you going to say anything?" she demanded, pulling back and then giving him a little shove so that his head hit the wall. He whimpered.

"Seriously?" She shook him. "Seriously?!"

"I—" he squeaked, then flinched when she glared at him. "I'm s-s-sorry."

"Why?" He was trembling, his knees knocking together. She let go of him in disgust. "Why even _come_ here if you're going to run off at the first hint of trouble?"

"I... I don't know," he mumbled, looking at his feet.

Yang took a deep breath in, then out. She snapped her fingers to get him to look up, then popped him just below his left eye.

"Ah!" He stumbled back and hit the wall again. She punched him, hard, aiming for where she'd seen the bruising on Ruby. He fell.

"That's what happened to your teammates when you were gone." He sniffled, curling into a ball. "You had your Aura up. They didn't." Another breath, to settle the churning in her gut.

"You called Oobleck. That's the only reason I'm not chasing you out of Beacon right now."

Sky didn't respond. She couldn't see his face from where he'd buried it between his knees. Yang turned and walked away, feeling if anything _more_ worked up than before. When she slipped back into her dorm and headed straight to the bathroom, neither Ren nor any of her teammates commented on her absence.

Yang wondered, as she drifted off to sleep, what ran through people's heads when they decided to run.


	13. First Impressions [10]

Over a week had passed since what Russel had taken to calling the Torchwick incident, and Yang and Nora still weren't over it. Dove could tell, because the only way they could've smothered their counterparts on team RSPR _more_ was if they'd trapped them inside plastic bubbles. Yang was more blatant about it than Nora—she was surprisingly prone to fussing over injuries when worried—but the signs there in both. It was... weird.

Not weird that they were concerned, exactly, but... well, in the first few weeks that Dove had known, say, Yang, he would have associated her far more readily with _causing_ an injury than carefully dabbing at one with a cotton swab while Ruby squirmed, and made faces, and told her that it didn't even hurt and would she please _quit it?_ Nora had been sticking even closer to Ren than normal, which he hadn't thought was possible. Russel had taken to teasing both of them mercilessly.

Dove didn't poke fun at them—partly because he wasn't that good at it, but mostly because he felt like he should have known them well enough to expect this. Especially Nora. They were partners, or at least academy partners, and... well, he didn't know that much about her. She was friends with Ren, liked explosives, got on _way_ too well with Yang. That was it. No parents, no hometowns, hell, he only had an educated guess telling him that her favorite color was pink.

With that in mind, he decided to bring it up one Saturday at dinner. If nothing else, it would distract them all from Sky, who was slumped in his seat and doing about the same thing to the atmosphere as a belligerent Weiss had the one and only time Jaune had made the mistake of inviting his team to their table. Dove cleared his throat and said, "Nora?"

"Huh?" She looked up from where she'd been cutting a pork chop into a disturbingly convincing imitation of a Boarbatusk to stare at him.

"I was wondering about where you're from."

Ren looked up sharply, and Nora seemed to be speechless. "Why?" she asked, after a moment.

"Well, I thought... um, it would be good to talk about that sort of thing." He shrugged. "We are teammates."

"Oh." Nora glanced at Ren. "Well... we're both from Anima."

Pyrrha perked up a little. "You too?"

Ren shook his head. "A different part of Anima. Not that close to Mistral."

"Yep!" Nora grinned. "We met during a Grimm attack!"

The table went dead. Even Sky looked up, wide-eyed. Ren frowned. "No, we met before that. Remember?"

"Well, _yeah,_ but that doesn't count. We didn't even talk then."

"I suppose." Ren picked at his food for a moment, then nudged Nora. "Go on, if you want."

She nodded. "Well, I didn't have parents before then, and..."

"I didn't afterwards."

"...Yeah. So we stuck together, and we kinda had to get good at killing Grimm. Which meant we could come here!" Nora spread her arms. Silence reigned.

"Way to kill the mood, Dove," Russel said. Yang kicked him. "Ow! Why do you keep doing that?"

Dove winced. "I apologize if that was too personal."

Nora flicked him on the forehead. "I wouldn't have told you if it _was,_ dummy."

"It was a long time ago," Ren said.

"Well, I was thinking of something a bit less... intense." Dove shrugged. "I grew up in Vale, not much to say about it."

"What were your parents like?" Ruby asked.

"They taught me how to fight. My father was a swordsman, and my mother showed me how to use a gun."

"So you're like a combo between the two?" Yang grinned. "Cool!"

Russel laughed. "I'm pretty sure we're _all_ a combo between our parents. That's how genetics work."

"I'm surprised you know that, to be honest," Dove told him.

"Hey! I can be sophisticated if I want!"

"Sure you can," Yang said, patting him on the back. He let out a little huff as the air was knocked out of him.

"What about your family?" Dove prompted him. Russel stared at him a moment, then grinned sheepishly.

"Uh, I guess I have a pretty big family."

Yang perked up. "Ooh! Any little sisters?"

"Yep, one. And three younger brothers." He made a face. "Little gremlins, the lot of 'em."

"They can't be _that_ bad."

He shook his head, chuckling again. "You've never met them. The youngest two? They're twins, and I swear they've been trying to burn the house down on purpose for years. Every time I turn my back on them for half a second—fire!"

Yang laughed and looked across the table at Ruby. Her little sister turned bright red. "That was one time!" she protested.

"Our poor coffee table..."

"It had it coming! That thing was ugly and you know it!"

"Yeah, it was." Yang glanced at Russel. "I guess having two was a bit of a handful, though."

He groaned. "It wasn't just the twins. They were all getting into trouble, all the time. Wouldn't have been so bad, but they just... took over. Like, every time I wanted to go somewhere with friends, I had to babysit."

The grin slid from Yang's face, replaced with a frown.

Russel gave a helpless shrug. "Not my problem now! I'm miles away and _finally_ getting some peace."

Dove's first warning that something was wrong came from Nora. Her mouth was hanging open, and she was staring at Russel like he'd just... well, suggested riding a King Taijitu.

"Ruby..." Yang had half-risen from her seat. Across from her, Ruby was looking anywhere and everywhere else.

"I'm going to, um... go to the bathoom." With that she made a full fighting retreat. Pyrrha and Ren both scrambled free of their bench to chase after her, while Sky made it halfway across the room before stopping in his tracks. After a moment's hesitation, Jaune followed most of RSPR in a dead sprint.

"What did I say?" Russel stared after them, horrorstruck. Nora stared at him like he was an idiot. Yang...

"You're an idiot," she growled, eyes flashing red. For a moment, it looked like she was going to hit him. Instead she stomped away, leaving little scorch marks on the floor as she passed. Older students had already been staring, but at the sight of a girl _literally_ on fire, their undivided attention was on her. She ignored them, shouldered her way past Sky with enough force to knock him over, and left the room.

"Russ..." Dove let his forehead hit the table. "Maybe next time you could _think_ before you talk?"

"But what did I _say?!"_ he repeated, sounding even more panicked. Dove hit his head on the table a few more times.

"Russel," he said, very slowly, "you just implied that your annoying little sister kept you from being happy and that you came here to get rid of her."

"Oh."

There was a long, horrified pause.

"Oh... _oh my god."_

"Dummy," Nora said, flicking him hard on the nose.

"But—but what do I _do?"_ Russel turned a pleading look on Dove.

"How should I know?" he demanded. "I'm an only child!"

"Ugh, _Russ."_ Nora prodded him hard in the shoulder. "You apologize. _Dummy."_

"But—I mean, how do I even do that? And what if she hits me? She's _really pissed!"_

"Not _Yang,"_ Nora said, giving him another poke. "You're apologizing to _Ruby."_

Russel stared at her for a moment, eyes wide. "Oh."

Nora shoved him away from the table. "Go! Say you're sorry! Grovel if you have to!" He nodded vigorously and charged out of the cafeteria.

Dove stared at her for several long seconds. "I need to stop being surprised when you have good advice," he decided. Nora winked at him.

* * *

Ruby really, really wished she hadn't left the table. Or maybe that her excuse had been better. Or—and this was a crazy thought—that she hadn't got so worked up over something Russel hadn't even been saying to _her._

People had been staring as she left the cafeteria—not many, but some. More started when her team and Jaune got up to follow her. She ran a little faster, deciding that she didn't want to talk to anyone right now. That meant she couldn't hide in their dorm. Instead she went to the courtyard, reasoning that there wouldn't be anyone around now that it was dinnertime.

It probably shouldn't have bothered her that much. Some people didn't get along with their siblings. That was fine! From the way Jaune talked, some siblings were downright _scary,_ which was also fine. Except that it was suddenly very difficult to think of anything except the times when she'd fussed over burnt toast when she and Yang were little, and that was all her sister knew how to make. Or maybe when she wandered out into the woods without telling anyone, and Yang had to go out and find her and ended up panicking so much that she attracted half the Grimm on Patch.

She scuffed her foot on the cobblestones. Yang had _seemed_ happy when she found out they could go to Beacon together, hadn't she? Only she'd left to hang out with some of her friends from Signal. Would she have been on a team with them if she hadn't been distracted by Ruby? Well, no—that was a stupid thing to feel guilty about, since there probably wasn't anyone in Beacon that could've gotten along with her as well as Nora.

Still. Another kick at the ground, and she started pacing a little back and forth. On the one hand, Yang never seemed mad about any of that stuff. On the other... Russel didn't seem mad either. Just... like he didn't want to hang out with them anymore. Maybe never again.

That was definitely worse.

"Ruby!" She jumped and whirled around.

"Jaune?" He was huffing and puffing, struggling for breath as he leaned against the nearby statue.

"Hi," he managed, after a moment. "Didn't... hah... didn't think I'd find you here."

She looked around. "It seemed like a nice spot."

"Yep. I hid from Cardin here once." He sat down on a bench next to the monument and patted the spot next to him. She sat. It took him a moment to get his breath back.

"Do you mind if I text everyone, let them know you're here?"

Ruby hesitated. "Um... kind of." She sighed, then let her head droop.

"You, uh... you should probably talk to Yang about this."

"I know," she mumbled. "But what if he's right?"

"He's not."

She swung her legs back and forth a few times. He tried to copy her, but his were too long. "Sorry for freaking out in the middle of dinner."

Jaune laughed sheepishly. "No worries. Trust me when I say my team's done worse."

Ruby cringed. "Yeah, I guess they have. Um... how's that going?" _Nice one, Ruby,_ she chided herself. _Way to change the subject to something even worse._

To her surprise, he actually smiled. "They're talking!" he whisper-shouted, pumping both fists in the air."

"Wait, really?!"

He nodded. "Yep. Weiss and Blake. It's... um, you could cut the tension with a knife and it kinda feels like there's a giant anvil hanging over the dorm waiting to fall on us, but they're talking to one another without yelling!"

Ruby gave him a high-five—she just _had_ to. "Go Jaune!" she cheered.

"I just wish I knew what happened..." He shrugged. "But I'm not going to question it!"

"That's so great!" She gave him another high-five, because this was a moment he totally deserved to bask in. Then his scroll buzzed twice. He looked down and blanched.

"Um... are you sure you mind telling them where we are? Because Yang and Pyrrha are kind of freaking out."

Ruby pulled out her own scroll and winced. There were something like fifteen messages from Yang, getting increasingly desperate, and Pyrrha had sent almost twice that many. "Yeah," she sighed. "I guess I should..." She sent them her location.

"Well!" Jaune patted her on the shoulder. "I guess we have, like, a minute or so before everything gets crazy."

"Thanks, Jaune." She mustered a smile. He grinned back.

That was about all there was time for before the reckoning arrived. Yang came charging out of the building and grabbed her in a hug that only barely avoided cracking a rib. Pyrrha hovered anxiously over her shoulder, and Ren heaved a sigh of relief the second he saw her.

"'M s'rry," she mumbled. Breathing was hard. Very hard. She squirmed out of Yang's grip and looked at the ground.

"You scared me."

 _Again._ Ruby cringed, taking a little step back. Her sister caught her by the shoulder. "Hey! I'm not mad, okay? Just... talk to me? Please?"

She tried to make eye contact, but found that she couldn't do it. Instead she drew her cloak around her and shuffled her feet. The others were still there, staring.

Ren cleared his throat. "We'll give you two a minute." Ruby managed so look up long enough to flash him a grateful smile.

The courtyard was silent for a moment, after that. Eventually Yang touched her gently on the shoulder. "Want to sit?"

Ruby shook her head. "Sorry," she repeated.

Yang bopped her gently on the nose. Startled, Ruby looked up at her. Their eyes met.

"Something I picked up from Nora," she explained. "And don't be sorry, okay? You don't have to keep apologizing when you didn't do anything wrong."

"That one was kind of a general apology. For... um, scaring you when we went after Torchwick. And before at Dusk Till Dawn. And all the time, now that I think about it."

Yang laughed and grabbed her in another hug. This one was softer, and kinder to her ribs. "I worry, okay? That doesn't mean I'm mad at you. Like dad—we both scare the crap out of him all the time and he still loves us, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry that got out of hand."

"...S'okay."

Yang nudged her side. "What's wrong?"

 _Was I a burden?_ Ruby didn't really want to ask. She had a feeling Yang would say no whether it was true or not, and part of her was worried she wouldn't be able to catch the lie. A bigger part of her was worried that she _would._

"It's just... um... I wasn't hungry."

Yang arched a single eyebrow. Ruby wondered if there was a single human being on the planet that would've bought that excuse.

"He's right..." she mumbled. Yang opened her mouth to speak, her brow furrowing in concern, but this was definitely one of those moments were Ruby's mouth was like a giant boulder teetering on the edge of a hill—you gave it one little push, and it just _kept going._ "I mean, I know when we were little you had to look after me all the time, and you never really got to be a kid and it's just... it's not _fair_ and maybe if I'd been more mature and stuff I could've handled myself better, and I didn't have to scare you by wandering around in the woods and... and I could've just _ate_ the toast it wasn't like either of us knew how to cook and it wasn't your fault it burned and..."

Yang stopped the uncontrollable gush of words by gently placing a finger over her lips. "I know everything was a bit of a mess back then," she said quietly. "But don't _ever_ apologize for that. You... you were the best part of those years, okay?"

Ruby blinked at her, feeling a bit like an Ursa had just clobbered her over the head. Slowly, she nodded.

"And I told this to Nora, but I think you should hear it too. It's good that you have your own team, you're really coming into your own and I'm _so_ proud of you—but you're always gonna be my little sister and I'll always be here for you. No matter what."

"I feel kinda dumb now," she said, as Yang folded her into another hug. "Overreacting like that, I mean."

Yang grinned sheepishly. "It probably means we should've talked this out sooner."

"Better late than never?"

They laughed. It occurred to Ruby that the others were probably worried. "We should go back."

"Yeah." Yang's expression darkened. "I gotta give my _partner_ a piece of my mind."

"Yang," Ruby groaned. "No! Stop it!"

"What?"

"You get along with Brine so well! Don't mess it up by punching Russel just because he said something dumb." Yang grumbled something not-at-all-reassuring as they stepped back into the school building. Then they stopped short... and _stared._

Russel was standing in the hallway in a pink _Please Do Nothing to the Cook_ apron that he _had_ to have borrowed from Ren, a tray of... something in his hands. He tried to grin. The expression looked pained—tortured, even.

Yang took a step forward, already starting to smoke a little. Ruby grabbed the back of her scarf and tugged. She stopped. _Glared._ He held out the tray in his hands as if it were a shield, sticking his arms out towards Ruby. She looked down.

"Are those strawberries?"

"Yeah. And cream-cheese icing. And some graham crackers."

Ruby gave him an odd look. "Did... did you make that?"

He nodded stiffly. "I, uh... used to give them to my sister when I said something dumb and upset her. So, um..." He gave the tray another little push, and Ruby took it. "I didn't think I'd be making it anymore," he went on. "But I can be a bit of a jerk sometimes. Anyway, I'm not a great big brother, so... you probably shouldn't judge other older siblings based on me." With that, he backed away and fled down the hallway.

Yang and Ruby exchanged a look. "Okay," her big sister managed, after a moment. "Okay. You know what? If you're happy, I'm happy. And I really don't want to know where he got that apron, so—"

"It's Ren's."

She sighed. "Of course it is."

* * *

"Hand me that book?" Weiss asked, reaching out. Blake passed it to her without looking up from her own work, and silence fell. Two mugs steamed from either corner of the small table they'd taken over in the library—one decaf coffee, and one black tea with milk. She might be a bit... _inexperienced_ with this whole friend business, but she _could_ remember a favorite drink. The mug containing the tea was—purely by coincidence, of course—purple.

Weiss flipped a page. She was a bit taken aback by how much _easier_ everything seemed now that they had their tentative truce. Coursework that she'd been grappling with since the beginning of the year had started to fall back into the neat, ordered strains of information she was used to. Fights were... well, they were better. The partner battles, at least. Father had stopped calling.

Blake stifled a laugh. Weiss turned to her, raising an eyebrow. She pointed at a small photograph of...

"No." Weiss folded her arms and glared at the textbook. "I refuse."

Peter Port grinned broadly at them from the glossy picture, his hair a wild chestnut-brown and his chest puffed out. His foot was planted firmly on the tusk of a disintegrating Goliath.

The small chuckle turned into a laughing fit. Blake had to clamp a hand over her mouth to smother it, and before long Weiss was having difficulty keeping a straight face herself.

Then, all of a sudden, Blake glanced at Weiss and her expression sobered. She looked back at the tabletop.

"What?"

Blake tensed. "It's nothing."

"It's obviously _not_ nothing," Weiss snapped.

"Nothing worth talking about." Blake didn't meet her eyes.

Sitting back with a frustrated huff, Weiss reached out and took a sip of her coffee. It was stone cold—she shuddered. Getting to her feet, she nudged Blake's shoulder and gestured at the other mug. "Want any more tea?" Her partner nodded.

She may have closed the library door with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. Weiss stalked off towards the cafeteria, glaring at everyone she passed. Then, before she even realized it, her angry stare caught on Dove. He was walking slowly, almost aimlessly. Then he stopped and saw that she was looking at him.

"Hello," he said politely.

Weiss nodded back at him. "Heading to the library?" she asked.

"Back to the dorm, actually." He paused, then raised his eyebrows. "Is it working?"

"Is _what_ working?" she snapped.

"The advice."

Weiss broke eye contact, feeling the tips of her ears reddening. "Yes."

"Good." He smiled and moved as if to walk past her.

"Wait!"

"Hmm?"

She hesitated. "Who... who _exactly_ told you all that?"

Dove grinned. Weiss decided immediately that she didn't like it when he did that—he suddenly looked _far_ too much like his teammates.

"Was it... Ren?" she tried, not really expecting him to say yes.

His grin widened.

"It was Nora, wasn't it?"

A single nod.

Weiss looked at the half-empty mugs like they might bite her. Dove had the nerve to laugh.

"It worked."

She tried to scowl at him, but... "Well, yes."

He spread his hands, as if to say _my point exactly,_ and then walked past her. Weiss was left standing in the hallway, hesitating. She supposed it _was_ working. And she could always stop if things got out of hand.

Her fears thus... mostly dispelled, Weiss made the rest of the trip to the cafeteria's coffeemaker and back without any other incident. Opening the door to the library was harder, once her hands were both occupied by drinks. She set the coffee down on the floor, moved for the handle—only for someone to walk out far too quickly and tip the mug over. Weiss used a glyph to steady it, then snatched it up again.

Blake was standing in the doorway, looking startled. "You should watch where you're going," Weiss said, eyes narrowing.

Her partner winced. "Sorry." Weiss handed her the tea.

"Actually... where _were_ you going?"

Blake looked a bit sheepish. "I realized you might need help carrying everything."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I was perfectly fine until _someone_ tried to upend my drink." She clutched it protectively between her palms, feeling the warmth, then took a sip.

They retreated back to the same table, still littered with their books and notebooks. The silence felt different this time, a little more awkward. Weiss distracted herself with her Grimm Studies textbook. Its pages were a very dry place to hide.

Eventually, she glanced over at what Blake was reading. "Do you want me to quiz you?" she asked, tapping the cover of _Remnant: the Color Wars and Beyond._ Her partner tensed.

"No," she said curtly. Weiss was taken aback.

"Why not?"

"I don't want your opinion on history."

"And I'm not offering it," Weiss huffed, feeling rather annoyed now. "I'm offering to ask questions."

Something jumped in Blake's jaw, and she shoved the book across the table. "Fine, then. Chapter four."

Weiss flipped pages forcefully, though she was still careful not to rip any of them. Eventually she found the chapter Blake had indicated—the one about the battle at Fort Castle.

"This was due over a week ago," she said suspiciously, "and I know you haven't been behind on the readings."

Blake's face stayed almost eerily impassive. "You wanted to test me."

Weiss glanced down at the page, feeling as though she was missing something important. "What was the name of the gen—"

"General Legume."

"Don't interrupt me," Weiss snapped. She scanned the page in front of her. "What three critical errors did Legume make?"

"He tried to ambush Faunus in the dark," Blake replied instantly. "He'd assumed they wouldn't be able to fight back when they were half asleep, but all he did was blind his own army."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "That's one, yes. And?"

Scowling, Blake answered, "Lima Gladiolus was able to lure his cavalry into terrain where their horses couldn't maneuver properly, and when that happened Legume chose to move forward rather than retreat. He was surrounded."

"Yes." Weiss smirked a little. "Little wonder that he lost."

"His army was three times their size." Blake's eyes had gone hard. "He was arrogant, and he overstepped, but even so it's incredible that the Faunus were able to beat him."

This was the real test. Weiss had long since learned to recognize tests, ones that weren't announced ahead of time or even after the fact. She straightened up and raised a single eyebrow. "I don't think anyone is arguing that he wasn't an idiot."

"No. But it wasn't _just_ that he was an idiot. A lot of people on the other side had a lot of brilliant ideas that turned the war in their favor."

Weiss was getting annoyed now, mostly because she still couldn't tell what the _point_ of this was. "I hardly think it was their idea to be ambushed in the dark, as well as it worked out for them in the end."

"And there it is."

"Oh, for the love of— _What?"_

"Your opinion."

"My opinion." Weiss gritted her teeth. "If you want to say something, then _say_ it."

"This battle wasn't just some lucky break for the Faunus, happening to be pitted against an idiot general. It was won because of their tactics and their strengths."

"You're being ridiculous," Weiss pointed out. "All I said was that the main factors that went into their winning the battle can be tied back to Legume. He had all the advantages going in, and he squandered them. That _was_ lucky for his enemies."

"Is it really _ridiculous_ to want to credit Lima Gladiolus? The one who thought to exploit all those weaknesses? The one who _won_ a seemingly impossible battle, and went on to help win the _war?_ Did you even know her name until just now?"

"Ugh." Weiss massaged the bridge of her nose. "Pause."

"Why?" Blake was staring her down, her whole body tense.

"Because it's nearly curfew," Weiss said slowly, tapping her scroll, "and we're arguing over something that happened close to a century ago. It doesn't matter."

"It _does_ matter!" Blake stood up to her full height. Weiss glanced around, but found that this late on a Saturday the library was empty. No one around to stare.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Yes, fine—learn from history or be doomed to repeat it. Don't try to ambush Faunus in the middle of the night. But it's _late_ and we should _drop it."_

"It's not just a _story._ Real people died in this battle fighting for equality, only to be told to ship off to a Grimm infested island and _make do."_

"You can't seriously be telling me that the plight of historical figures that have all been dead for years is more important than not being caught out past curfew by Professor Goodwitch."

"Yes, I can!" Blake leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose. "Because it matters that the peace these people died for, the peace they were promised after the war, still isn't here! It matters that there are Faunus working in Dust mines that are slaves in all but name. It _matters_ that eighty years later we're _still fighting."_

We.

Blake hadn't realized it had slipped out. Weiss stared at her a moment, her hand finding the table behind her, the mug of cooling tea. Fighting—she'd said _fighting._ "You're with the White Fang, aren't you?"

The wide-eyed stare was answer enough. Weiss drew back and hurled the mug at Blake's head. It missed, smashed against a bookshelf. She jumped.

"Well?!" Weiss took a little step back, ran into the table. Her hand was shaking. "What are you going to do?"

Blake drew away, still staring. Then she turned. Fled.

It was like a bucket of cold water had been splashed over her. Weiss had been gearing up for a fight. She'd been ready to shout, to demand answers, maybe to run herself if Blake attacked her. Instead she was left standing in an empty library, watching a puddle of tepid tea spread around the shattered remains of a purple mug.

Weiss jolted out of her reverie, then rushed from the library. That _lying, traitorous little—_ she passed someone, and only after shoving him out of her way hard enough to bounce him off the wall did she realize it was Sky. She passed him, stalking down the corridor with a righteous fury that built with every step. Just when she seemed close, just when _something_ about Beacon had almost seemed worth it, it turned out she was being deceived. _Deluded._

"Idiot," she seethed.

There would be a reckoning for this—she'd see to it. _Personally._


	14. First Impressions [11]

"Weiss!" Pyrrha shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Blake!"

Jaune was walking between her and Ruby, looking as dejected as she'd ever seen him. He'd asked for help looking for his missing teammates, and... well, she and Ruby had both been tripping over each other to agree. Ren had decided to follow along behind them. Sky wasn't there. Their search had eventually brought them to Vale, where they'd been wandering around long enough that they were starting to get used to the weird looks.

"It's been almost a _day,"_ Jaune groaned. "What are they even doing?!"

"Maybe they're... um..." Ruby trailed off, then brightened. "Maybe they got tired of sharing a room with Cardin and decided to spend the weekend here in Vale!"

"Without telling me?" Then he frowned. "Wait, without _inviting me?_ If that's true I'm gonna be mad." Pyrrha nodded agreement. Teammates shouldn't abandon teammates to suffer the presence of Cardin Winchester.

Taking a deep breath, Jaune tipped his head back and yelled, "Blake! Weiss! Don't you dare leave me alone with Cardin!"

"Has he even noticed they're missing?" Ren asked.

"Oh, he knows. He said, and I quote—'Good riddance, maybe now we'll get somewhere in sparring.'" Pyrrha scoffed, and Ruby stifled a groan. "I know, right? It's like he doesn't realize they've been carrying the two of us all semester."

"Cardin, definitely," Ruby said stubbornly, "but _you_ held the whole team together. Without you, those three would just be... well, they wouldn't be _anything_ because they would have fought to the death over leadership by now."

"Maybe." Jaune didn't seem convinced. "I just wish... I don't know. I wish I didn't feel like I was dragging the team down." He sighed. "I mean, at least I'm _just_ useless—I never broke Weiss' Aura in the middle of a fight."

_Wait, what?!_ Pyrrha wanted to ask for clarification—because if that hadn't happened in any of their fights in Combat Class, it must have been in _initiation_ with _the Grimm—_ but Ruby had focused on a different part of the sentence.

"You're not useless," she insisted, giving him a stern bop on the nose. He reared back, startled.

"What—?"

"Nora did it to Yang and then she did it to me and it just kind of _happened,"_ Ruby blurted out, flustered. "But that's not the point! The point is that you're not useless!"

"I can't fight, though." He kicked out at an empty can lying on the sidewalk and sent it skittering into the street. "Or pass tests. Or get them to stop arguing—or! And you know, this is really the best part—I can't even _find them!"_

"We could help you," Ruby suggested, looking at her feet. "I mean, maybe not with those last two things, but I've been teaching Sky to fight and he's been helping me with all the theory I missed. You could join if you wanted."

Pyrrha had heard from Ruby that the two of them were tutoring one another. Maybe it was ridiculous, but now she couldn't help bristling at the idea.

"You aren't angry with him?" she asked quietly.

Ruby frowned. "I mean... maybe it bothers me a little. But he was just scared, it wasn't like he did it to hurt us."

Jaune frowned. "Uh, what?"

"We fought Torchwick," Ren explained. "Sky... ran away."

_"What?"_ Jaune looked incensed. "He just left you to fend for yourselves?"

"I doubt he would have contributed much if he'd stayed. Besides, I'd prefer knowing he's prone to things like that sooner rather than later."

"You're mad at him too?" Ruby fiddled with her cloak.

"No. I'm... disappointed."

"Is that why he's not here?" Jaune asked. Then he did a double take, as if he'd forgotten why _any_ of them were there. "Right. Weiss! Blake!" There was, as usual, no answer.

"He's been making himself scarce," Ren said, nodding. "I think he realizes what he did was wrong."

"Guys." Ruby gave him and Pyrrha reproachful looks. "I know it wasn't a good thing for him to run, but if he hadn't gotten Oobleck then we would've _died."_

Pyrrha felt her shoulders tense and forced herself to relax them. "He called Professor Goodwitch on his scroll. He could have done that and then rejoined the fight."

"Yeah," Ruby admitted, "but still. He _could_ have just run away and not said anything. Talking to Goodwitch was probably pretty scary too, and he did it to help us. Maybe it's not the _best_ thing he could have done, but... he's said fighting isn't what he does well, and we were going up against Torchwick!"

"And if the four of us were up against something out of your league?" Pyrrha asked her. "Would you run away?"

"Of course not!" Ruby looked indignant.

"That's why I'm angry with Sky—you'd fight to protect him, even if you didn't think you could win. He didn't do the same for you."

"I guess." Ruby scuffed her boot against the street as she walked, then shouted, "Blake! Weiss! Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

It was impossible not to smile. Pyrrha watched her partner as she ran ahead, still calling out for Jaune's missing teammates, then flashed back to them in a shower of red petals. Roman Torchwick had almost killed her.

She exchanged a look with Ren, wondering if he was feeling the same surge of protectiveness that she was. It was silly, in a sense—she'd sparred with Ruby and knew full well that she could handle herself. In another, well... Pyrrha wasn't used to having people this close. She'd been terrified when the two of them met in the Emerald Forest that she'd just ended up partnered with another fan, someone who would never be able to look past the image she portrayed. Then it had turned out that she really _was_ that tongue-tied around everyone, and held more hero-worship for Miló than Pyrrha herself. It was everything she'd wanted from Beacon—for someone to be genuine with her.

Jaune grumbled something under his breath. "Weiss!" he called out, a bit half-heartedly. "Blake! Ugh."

He pulled out his scroll and selected Blake's contact. It rang for a while as they walked, a jaunty tune that seemed horribly out of place. Then, eventually, it stopped. "Shocker," he muttered, then started another call.

On the fourth ring, there was a click and a voice—a distinctly _male_ voice—said, "Hey there!" Jaune fumbled the scroll and nearly dropped it.

"What the—who is this?!"

"Ice Queen wants you to know she's not dead."

There was a scuffle on the other end of the line, and Pyrrha could just barely hear Weiss' voice. "—that back, you insufferable _ruffian!"_

"Weiss?! What's happening? Are you okay?"

"You're welcome!" mystery dude shouted into the scroll. "Ow! My _knee—_ "

"Serves you right," Weiss snapped. "Look, Jaune, I can explain later but right now—"

"What? Weiss! Who was that? Where _are_ you?!"

"I'm fine, you don't need to worry."

_"Fine is not a location, Weiss!"_

"...Vale."

"Gyah!" He hefted his scroll as if he was considering throwing it, then calmed himself. "I don't—I called you _six times,_ why weren't you answering?!"

"I... I thought you were someone else."

"What's going on?" he demanded. "Is Blake with you?"

"No. I need to go, just—"

"What?! No! Where in Vale? What are you doing? What _happened?"_

"I'll call again when I find her," Weiss promised, and hung up.

Jaune made a strangled noise somewhere between an enraged howl and a groan. "I can't believe them. I _actually cannot believe them._ Who just up and disappears for almost a day out of nowhere?! And since when does Weiss have other friends?"

"They can't have gone too far," Pyrrha offered, trying to sound confident. "And we'll stay and help you as long as you need."

Ruby patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. "We'll find them," she promised. "And then you can yell at them in person."

"I think I will," he said, looking shocked. "I'm going to yell at them. I mean, then they're going to kill me, but I am _definitely_ going to be doing a _lot_ of shouting."

"I'm sure it'll be cathartic," Ren said sagely.

* * *

"I don't know why you keep doing this," Russel grumbled. Dove hauled on the back of his vest, and he stumbled along behind his leader to keep from choking. "Alright, alright! I'm just saying, you can study alone."

"I can." Dove spoke calmly and evenly, almost as if he wasn't dragging one of his teammates behind him like a misbehaving dog. "But if I _do,_ you aren't going to study."

"I'll wing it!" Russel protested. "I'm a winger, it's what I do!"

"Not when we're sharing grades, you don't."

"Ugh..." Russel squirmed a little, eventually managing to free himself. He considered bolting, but decided that it wasn't worth the effort. Dove would just catch him again. "You aren't making Yang and Nora do this."

"I don't _have_ to make them, because they do it on their own."

Russel... found that he couldn't argue with that. "Fine," he grumbled. After a bit more swearing under his breath, he was unceremoniously shoved into a chair in one corner of the library. Dove then plopped down a textbook in front of him. It fell open to the exact right page, the beginning of the first chapter of _yet another reading._ Russel had decided to ignore both Oobleck and Port during classes, since the two of them seemed perfectly content to have the students do all the learning on their own. Dust Theory, though... he shuddered. You needed the readings to understand the lectures, and the readings never made any sense until you'd seen the lectures.

Before he'd managed to uncross his eyes after staring too long at a particularly convoluted diagram, he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his vision. When he turned to look, all he could see were bookshelves. It happened again, though, the moment he bent his head to squint at his notes. He tried to act busy, while making sure to keep his head tilted so that he could see that corner...

"Yo!" he called out, when a familiar head poked around one bookshelf. "Take a picture, it lasts longer!" A few people glared at him. He resisted the urge to flip them off, mostly because Dove would nag his ears off.

Sky Lark jumped, then immediately hid behind the shelves. Russel rolled his eyes and made a beckoning motion with his hand. The other boy's eyes went wide, and for a moment it seemed like he might take off running in the opposite direction. Then he slumped, head down, and trudged over.

"What?" Russel asked.

"You had a fight with Yang," Sky said.

Russel squinted at him, then made his eyes go wide. "Wait, really? Thanks for telling me!"

"I mean... you had a fight, and then you made up. In the span of about an hour."

He grinned at Sky and shrugged. "What can I say? Perks of being able to make sweets. No one stays mad at you."

"Ignore him," Dove told Sky. "He's only saying that because the _real_ reason Yang stopped being mad at him was that he wore Ren's apron."

Sky stared at Dove, then at him. He sighed. "Okay, fine. There _might_ have been a pink apron involved. I think she figured I had to be serious about apologizing if I was willing to make myself look like that much of an ass."

"You know, it's actually not a bad look on you," Dove told him.

"Shut up. And anyway, why do you care? You're not on our team." Dove kicked him under the table, and Russel glared at him. "You too? Seriously?"

"I screwed up," Sky admitted. "I just want to apologize to my team, and Yang. Definitely Yang. She's, uh... made sure to tell me she's not happy with me."

Russel winced. He'd only briefly had her give him that red-eyed look, and... well, it had felt a bit like he'd just accidentally wandered between a mother bear and her cub, and was about to get mauled.

"Okay," he said, clapping Sky on the shoulder. "First thing? There's pretty much nothing you can do for her to get her to forgive you."

Sky wilted before his very eyes. "Oh. That's... oh."

_"But,_ she'll forget all about it as long as you make it up to Ruby. At least in my experience." True, his experience was limited to exactly one fight, but hey! That was more than anyone else at the academy.

"Ruby isn't mad at me, though," Sky protested. "She's just kinda... disappointed. The whole team is." He pulled out a chair and collapsed into it, massaging his forehead. "How am I supposed to fix _that?"_

Dove cleared his throat. "I was asked a similar question a week or so ago, actually. You just need to show that you're serious about making up for it. Whenever they trust you with something, no matter how small, you stick with it. Build up to life-or-death stuff. Or don't, because apparently almost dying together also helps.

"That's... actually really helpful." It would maybe have been nice for Sky to conceal his surprise a little better. "Thank you."

"Thank Nora, not us," Dove told him.

Sky's hopeful grin froze on his face, and Dove rolled his eyes. "Don't panic. She know's what she's talking about, I've been told good things about the results."

"Yeah!" Russel smirked. "She and Yang aren't dumb, they're just crazy."

"Russ!"

"What? It's not like I'm throwing stones, here. I'm dumb _and_ crazy."

"You're not dumb." Dove tapped the cover of the textbook in front of Russel, the textbook he hadn't even glanced at since Sky had shown up. "You learn well when you apply yourself."

Russel made a face. "Dumb or not, this book crap doesn't agree with me. I think I'm allergic."

"Allergic to safety regulations, more like," Dove grumbled under his breath. Russel laughed at him.

"Thanks, guys," Sky repeated. "And thank Nora for me, too." With that, he hurried off.

"Man," Russel said, leaning back in his chair. "It's nice to know I can help rash young people make better decisions and build healthy friendships."

Dove stared at him a moment. "You need to stop thinking of yourself as any kind of role model."

"Hey!"

"At least until I stop catching you looking up places to buy fireworks in the middle of class."

"...Fair."

* * *

The airfield wasn't that crowded. It wasn't empty either, and Blake had ended up sitting next to someone else while they waited for a ship. He was human, with curly copper hair and a long nose. He'd tried to talk to her once or twice, but she'd glared at him and he'd given up.

She should have left sooner. Her things had been packed since... well, since before initiation—she'd never felt comfortable enough to make herself at home. At first she'd thought that she could handle it, that a team she hated just meant she'd have to focus more on her studies. Jaune was okay, and that was enough, and then it wasn't. He was trying, she could tell, but every day was a blizzard of insults, veiled threats, not-so-veiled threats, and petty passive-aggressiveness. She hated it.

That was when she should have left. Day two. When the first night had passed with her sitting cross-legged in a dark corner of the library and reading by moonlight. That was when she should have figured out that it wasn't going to work. She'd kept going, though. Maybe it was stubbornness, or maybe just the only way to avoid having to figure out what to do next. Either way, she'd been planning to leave this weekend if things didn't improve. She'd known they wouldn't.

Then they had. Sort of. Weiss had shown up out of nowhere and given her coffee, and it had been... nice. Not the company, exactly, she was still snippy and easily angered, but the fact that she'd been able to _relax._ She probably should have known their truce wouldn't last, but it had been nice to pretend.

What now, though? She'd left the White Fang, and Beacon had been a last-ditch attempt to find someplace she could use her skills for something unambiguously good. Now... she could go home, but she didn't think she could face that. There were other academies—not Atlas, but perhaps Shade or Haven. She knew Shade accepted Faunus, but how was she supposed to get all the way to Vacuo with barely twenty lien?

She wondered what Jaune would do, now. Maybe Weiss and Cardin could eventually reconcile— _they've got at least one thing in common, after all._ They probably wouldn't. Both too stubborn. The team would be dissolved and Jaune might get kicked out, or maybe he'd just have to come back next year and redo initiation. Then he could get a better team.

Her left leg was bouncing up and down. She put her hand on it to keep it still. It was stupid to stay as long as she had. Stupid to relax around Weiss, even for a second, when she knew it was temporary. Made this harder. It had taken her a full day of wandering around Vale to get here, because she'd kept walking halfway to the airfield and then part of the way back to Beacon and then off in some third direction because she needed to _think_ and that was easier while she was in motion. She'd walked through the night, even.

Blake stood up, then, suddenly unable to keep still. Up above, an airship dropped gently out of the sky and landed on the tarmac. She briefly wondered whether it led to Mistral or Vacuo, then dismissed either thought when she saw a familiar snowflake emblem branded on its side. Her jaw clenched, and she looked away. Not Atlas—she might go just about anywhere else, but not Atlas.

Another glance showed her that it wasn't a passenger ship anyway. From what she could see from its shape, it was a freighter. Probably full of Dust. No, not probably—she could hear one of the crew talking as he exited the cab, gesturing animatedly at the ship behind him.

"—can't just leave all this Dust here! We have a permit, we're unloading at a warehouse near the docks."

The woman in uniform he was talking to made a tut-tutting sound. "Not until you do your due diligence and sign all the paperwork, you aren't."

"I can't lose this shipment!" He dropped his voice to the point where it was inaudible even to Blake, and she started looking for excuses to wander closer. She found one when she spotted an arrivals board around twenty feet away from them.

"—don't care if you're carrying Schnee Dust or talcum powder, you _sign the paperwork,"_ the woman was saying. The man was agitated, shifting from foot to foot, but Blake made sure not to look at him too long lest she be caught staring.

_"Please,_ Tapioca? We've had something like three shipments hit just this month. Schnee will probably fire the next person in charge of a screw-up. I just want this thing out of my custody as soon as possible."

"If you're so desperate to get this through," the woman replied tartly, "then I suggest you get started on the paperwork."

He muttered something under his breath that Blake didn't quite catch, but the woman apparently did. "Just for that, I'm giving you one of the cheap pens."

Blake was left standing off to the side, regarding the airship curiously. She only had the pilot's personal worries that it might be attacked, but... if nothing else, keeping an eye on it would give her something to do while she worked out where to go next. With that in mind she glanced around surreptitiously, walked towards the back of the airship, and slipped in amongst the cargo.

When the ship moved again, Blake woke with her legs stiff and aching. Her eyes burned and her head swam, but she stood up and walked around and stopped worrying she might pass out. It was only a few minutes after that when she felt the freighter land. She glanced around, looking for a place to hide, and slipped behind a stack of containers. The cargo doors opened, letting shafts of weak sunlight spill into the hold. When she risked a peek, she saw workmen hauling on one of the crates, bringing it out of the ship. They were silhouetted against the setting sun—she must have been inside for hours.

They were moving the cargo. Her hiding place wouldn't stay put for very long. Blake took her chance when most of the workers were busy stacking some of the crates, and ducked out from behind the remaining two. One woman turned around, but she didn't call out. Nothing to indicate she'd seen anything.

Once she was far enough away from the ship, she settled in to wait on top of a stack of crates. The Schnee emblem was everywhere, a maze of shipping containers with that hated logo stamped on either side, stacked one on top of another. It had been on the back of Weiss' coat, too. Always that reminder, every time she caught herself mid-laugh, that the person she was sitting with wasn't a friend.

Blake stretched out, lying on her stomach, and watched as the workers moved the rest of the cargo into the yard. It was late, the workers would be going home soon. That meant the Dust would stay the night there before being hauled into the warehouse, and that was probably when it would be stolen.

Waiting here was better than waiting for an airship. She wasn't thinking about where to go. Couldn't think about anything, not when she was constantly alert, listening for any sign of intruders—or the guards meant to stop intruders, since they probably wouldn't appreciate her civic-mindedness if they caught her here. There was only the prickle of doubt in the back of her mind, the lingering shadow of that moment in the library when Weiss' expression had gone from annoyance to blind panic. She buried it by focusing on the task ahead, by scouring the yard for possible entry points.

That turned out to be pointless, because they came from the sky. She heard the droning long before the airships arrived, but spent the whole time convincing herself that surely, _surely,_ no thief out to steal Dust from the SDC would happen to have _aircraft_ on hand. But then the proof was right in front of her, and there were Faunus sliding down ropes and into the yard—Faunus wearing Grimm Masks.

"No," she breathed. Why would they be here? Where did they get those ships?!

"Alright, you animals!" a jovial voice called out. "Let's see if you can beat the help I had last week. Trust me when I say that it's a _really low bar."_

Torchwick. Roman Torchwick. Blake bristled, ears flattening against her head. There was no way Adam would ever work with humans, and certainly not someone like _that._ This had to be a mistake. Something... something else was going on. It had to be.

She dropped down behind the stack of crates she'd been waiting on, then darted between spots of cover until she was just a few feet behind Torchwick. He was giving out orders, nearly all of them laced with animal-themed insults. She'd seen White Fang members break bones for less. Slowly, carefully, she crept up behind him and put her sword to his throat.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Torchwick was silent for a moment. Then, "Oh, come _on!_ Three times in a row?! This is getting ridiculous!"

The White Fang members in front of him were glaring at her, some drawing weapons. She tensed, then reached up and removed her bow.

"Why help him?" she asked the Faunus. "He's everything we've been fighting against!"

"I mean, _really,"_ Torchwick went on, as if she hadn't spoken at all. "The first time? Rotten luck, it happens sometimes. Twice? Maybe I need to spruce up my act, draw a little less attention. But _three?_ How do you little brats keep finding me?!"

"Shut up," she hissed, drawing the blade up under his chin. "I asked you a question."

"What am I doing here?" She couldn't see his face, but everything in his voice suggested that he was smirking. "Well, I'm being a regular Robin Hood, don't you know. Stealing from the rich—" he gestured to the crates of Dust all around them, to the rows and columns of Schnee emblems— "and giving to the poor!" At that, he put a hand on his own chest.

"You—" Blake started, but he didn't let her finish. He'd been drawing his cane up, slow enough that she hadn't noticed, and before she could think to stop him he pressed a button on the handle and fired. She was weightless for a moment, and then she smashed into one of the crates and slid painfully to the ground. The White Fang members stepped forward, raising their own guns.

"Brothers and Sisters!" she cried out, reaching for them. "I'm not your enemy! _He_ is your enemy!" One of them shot at her. She pushed herself sideways, leaving behind a clone that soon expired in a hail of bullets.

_They're really working for him._ Her breathing was coming hard and shallow, making low rasping noises that were sure to attract attention. She tried to slow it, but looming all around her were pristine white snowflakes, and she remembered the look on Weiss' face when she realized she was standing in front of a Faunus, a Faunus who had been in the White Fang. Betrayal. Terror. _This is what we've become._

"Here, kitty kitty!" Torchwick called out, sing-song. She bared her teeth, snuck around the side of a crate, and saw him. Lunging forward, she made it halfway to him before he turned and fired again. She lurched sideways at the last second, leaving a clone to take the hit. Then she was running, ducking behind another stack of crates, feeling bullets sparking against her Aura as a few lucky White Fang members managed to graze her.

Torchwick laughed. "It's ironic, you know? Here we are playing cat and mouse, and _you..._ well, heh, you're not exactly the cat, now are you?"

She ducked from crate to crate, then nearly ran into one of the White Fang. The man turned, startled, his fox ears perking up as he saw her. She smacked him in the side of the head with her hilt, hard. He reeled, crashed into a nearby Dust container, and landed in a heap. His shout drew more of them. Blake vanished into the maze of boxes.

The sun had set hours ago, and it was almost pitch dark outside. That didn't bother Blake, but it didn't bother the White Fang, either. All it did was hide her from Torchwick, though that felt like a minor miracle in and of itself. He was still taunting her as he wandered through the maze of crates. "This is pretty cathartic, you know. Heh, get it? _Cat-thartic?"_

She got behind him, lined up her gun, and shot at his back. He whirled around and returned fire. His shot must have been laced with some kind of Dust, because it ignited in a small fireball as it struck home. Blake was thrown off her feet and landed half a dozen yards from where she'd started. She cried out, reaching for her shoulder where the bullet had struck. There was a burn there, but no blood—her Aura had broken, but she wasn't badly hurt.

Torchwick walked forward until he was standing over her, and kicked her viciously in the side. "Ah," he sighed, the picture of satisfaction. "At last, an annoyance is getting _dealt with."_ His cane slashed downward, and Blake caught it on her forearm. She bit back a scream, then struggled to her feet. Gambol Shroud was in front of her, brandished like a shield. It wasn't a shield, though—and she wasn't at all confident it would protect her from sustained gunfire.

"You're awfully stubborn," Torchwick grumbled. Then he turned and shouted, "Any of you incompetent wastes of space going to help me out here? No?" He sighed, and shot Blake a look as if to say, _can you believe this?_ "Can't say I expected better. They _are_ a mite less pathetic than Junior's lot, but don't tell them I said that. It'd go to their heads."

She kicked him in the shin and scrambled away from him while he was distracted, back into the maze. There were fewer White Fang members, now—they were too spread out. Her arm hurt. It was a sharp, searing pain that made her wonder if something had been broken or fractured, but she couldn't focus on it now. Her legs wobbled, and she tripped and fell. Her shoulder smashed into the side of one of the crates, and when she looked up all she could see was that _stupid_ snowflake.

_Stop it,_ she told herself. _She was friends with Blake the human, not you._ Nothing had been lost, since nothing had been gained in the first place. It didn't matter. Except that it _did,_ because it was starting to look like she might die here and Jaune and Weiss would have no idea what had happened.

"You know," Torchwick's voice called out, "this is starting to get more annoying than entertaining, Kitty-Cat. How about you come on out and we can both get on with our day? Or, well, _I'll_ get on with my day. I guess you won't."

Blake grit her teeth. If someone was going to kill her, she'd rather it were one of the White Fang grunts than _him._ Living would be better. She turned to the crate she'd been leaning on, then grimaced. A really, really stupid idea began to take shape.

"I don't have all day, Kitten." Torchwick was getting closer—had he heard her hit the crate before? It didn't matter. If he didn't know where she was now, he would in a moment. Blake leveled Gambol Shroud at the crate's lock and slashed it in two.

His footsteps sped up as she kicked open the door. Inside, boxes and boxes of Dust were piled on top of one another. _Crystals, Burn, Uncut_ was printed across their sides in bold black lettering, along with the SDC logo. Blake backed away, behind the nearest crate, and she leveled Gambol Shroud at the volatile contents.

_Stupid._ She knew that, but if nothing else she'd picked one of the few crates that wasn't part of a stack. It was sitting on its own, farther from its neighbors than the others were. It wouldn't start a chain reaction. Whether or not the resulting explosion would leave her unscathed was pretty up in the air, but it would definitely make things harder for Torchwick.

"Are you trying to hide in there?" He laughed, stepping forward so that Blake could just see his arm poking out past her hiding spot. "I mean, I knew cats loved boxes, but—"

Blake fired, and the world _exploded._


	15. First Impressions [12]

Vale was crowded.

Someone bumped into her shoulder as she passed him. Weiss turned and _glared_. He was a grown man almost twice her size, and at the look on her face he turned and hurried away like a frightened rabbit. It felt good, so she kept doing it. People started giving her a wide berth.

Weiss pulled out her scroll and checked the time. Twenty past eight—that made almost forty minutes wasted on this _useless_ venture. She huffed out a breath and glared at the display. Not for the first time, she found her fingers hovering over the emergency contact for the Vale Police Department. And not for the first time, she decided that she would wait ten more minutes. Ten more minutes, and if she didn't find anything she'd give it up and report everything.

Gritting her teeth, she turned down another street and grabbed the first passerby she could see. "Have you seen this girl?" she demanded, shoving her scroll in the woman's face. It showed Blake's school photo, the one that was in Beacon's files, because the two of them had never taken any together. The woman blinked, trying to focus on it, then shook her head. Weiss was unsurprised. She'd been unsurprised since the fifth person she'd asked.

This was idiotic. Another look at her scroll revealed that it was now almost eight-thirty. Five more minutes, and she would give up and call the police. The thought _burned._

"Have you seen this girl?" she asked again, this time leveling her scroll at a middle-aged man with curly red hair. _Ridiculous. What am I even trying to do?_ He shook his head.

Weiss pulled up the emergency contacts again. Technically there were still three minutes left before her self-imposed deadline, but the pointlessness of the gesture was weighing on her. It wasn't as if she'd be able to find a terrorist on her own, and it probably wouldn't go well for her if she did. This was idiotic.

"Hey!"

She ignored the shout, assuming it was for someone else.

"Hey! You with the snowflake!"

She ignored that, too, though it was too much to hope at this point that there was someone else around fitting that description.

When he put a hand on her shoulder, she could no longer ignore him. She knocked it away, turned, and glared. She was met with a broad, toothy grin that was vaguely reminiscent of... well, BRYN. She backed away.

"Finally!" He put his hands on his hips, still grinning. There was a shock of blond hair on his head, and a blond tail coiled in the air behind him. Weiss noticed that he wasn't even wearing a shirt, and took another step back.

_"What?"_ she snapped, folding her arms.

"You were looking for someone?"

"...Yes." Very reluctantly, she held out the scroll.

"I knew it! I... definitely didn't look over your shoulder or anything!" He coughed into his hand.

"Well?"

"Huh?"

"Have you seen her or _not?"_

"Yep!"

Weiss did a double take. "Wait, what?"

"I've seen her," he repeated, his smile slipping a little. "What do you want with her, anyway?"

"We have unfinished business."

He put a hand on his chin. "Hmm... _Maybe_ I know where she went."

_"Maybe_ I should find someone who actually knows what they're talking about."

"Ah!" He clutched his bare chest. "My heart!"

"Do you know where she is, or not? If not, kindly—"

"Okay, okay!" He spread his hands. "I know where she is. I'm just not sure I should tell you."

"Oh, for the love of—"

"Because, y'know, if this is some kind of manhunt I don't think I can support that. _But,_ if she's you're friend..."

"She isn't. And _don't_ interrupt me."

"That's... really not reassuring." He sighed. "So... why are you looking for her, then?"

Weiss left hand twitched towards the hilt of her sword. He noticed, and raised an eyebrow. "I found out she was lying," she replied. "And she ran off before I could confront her properly. _Happy?"_

"Nope!" He tried to sling an arm across her shoulders, but she sidestepped out of the way. "Listen, _something_ tells me that this is a conversation we should be having somewhere less public. Okay?"

"No." Weiss glared at him.

"If you want to know where she is..."

She growled something under her breath that made him wince, but followed him as he disappeared into an alley. "For the record, if this is an attempt at mugging me I _will_ skewer you."

"Right, right." He waved a hand. "I'm just gonna ignore that. So! How do you know tall, dark, and mysterious?"

"You mean Blake."

"Oh, _that's_ her name!"

Weiss shot him a look. "If you're just messing around—"

"I'm not! I said I _saw_ her, not that I talked to her. I mean, I would've tried but she vanished before I got the chance."

"You thought this was valuable information _why?"_

"Well, I know where she was half an hour ago. That's better than you've got." His grey eyes narrowed. "But _first,_ I'm going to have to figure out just what happened between you two. Because I'm not helping you if you're just looking to pick on her."

"I'm not going to be 'picking' on anyone," she snapped. "She's a terrorist."

He gave her a supremely unimpressed look. "Based on... what, the ears?"

Weiss did a double-take. "Wait, what?"

"Wait—you didn't know?!"

"Of course I knew about the—I meant, how did _you_ know?"

He shrugged. "I mean, it's not that hard."

"Is it a..."

"Faunus thing?" He waved his tail. "Nope. I just happen to pay attention."

"Somehow, I doubt that."

"Ugh!" He slapped a hand over his face. "I can see why she ran away from you, now."

"She ran away because she let slip she's in the White Fang!"

"What _exactly_ did she say?" he asked, "Because I've 'Admitted to being in the White Fang' before just by trying to get into a humans-only café."

"She let slip she was a Faunus and _heavily implied_ that she was fighting," Weiss replied. "When I called her out on it, she ran. Not exactly the actions of an innocent person."

"Right." He gave her a _look._ "So, I'm gonna need one good reason not to walk away and find her myself."

"It's—" she stopped, fuming. Why _shouldn't_ he help her find Blake? It wasn't as if it was any of his business. They were supposed to be partners, was it _that_ unreasonable she'd want a proper confrontation?! She was breathing hard, now, but no answer that would satisfy him had come to mind. He'd obviously already decided—probably as soon as he'd seen her. "Fine," she snarled, giving him a shove. "Why should I care?" Her voice cracked.

"I don't know," he shot back. "Why _do_ you care?"

She crossed her arms and looked away. "She's my partner at Beacon."

"Ah, geez." He rubbed a hand through his hair. "It had to be partner issues. Okay, okay, _fine._ I'll be the monkey in the middle."

Weiss stared at him.

"What, humans can do it but I can't?"

"You remind me of someone," she said, thinking of Yang. "And I need to make sure the two of you never meet."

"You've known me, like, five minutes. I'm pretty sure you still don't know my name."

"That's on you," she huffed. "You never bothered introducing yourself. Or asking _my_ name. It's Weiss, if you care."

"I'm Sun. And I already knew who you were, that coat isn't exactly subtle."

"Are you going to help me or not?" she demanded, forcing herself to stand straight and look him in the eye.

"Nope." He grinned, pointing at the picture on her scroll. "I'm gonna help _her."_

That turned out to be harder than either of them had anticipated. They walked to where Sun claimed he'd seen Blake, only to find that she was—unsurprisingly—long gone. Asking people in that general area if they'd seen her proved just as fruitless as it had been where Weiss had started searching.

"Okay," Sun eventually admitted, "this isn't going as planned."

"It's nearly midnight. I don't see the point of continuing with this charade."

"Hey!" He waggled a finger at her. "No quitting early on me, Ice Queen."

_"Excuse me?"_

"We've still got time, right? I mean... okay, so it's getting kind of late, but we can just crash in a motel or something."

"No." Weiss shook her head. "No. That is most definitely _not_ happening."

"Then I guess we keep going all night!" he declared. "Because I'm not giving up until Blake is proven innocent!"

"Oh, for the love of—she ran off, Sun! In what universe does that _not_ mean she's guilty?"

"In this one," he said stubbornly. "People do that when they're scared. Trust me, this is _not_ the first time she's had someone like _you_ yell that at her."

"It was hardly out of the blue," Weiss grumbled.

"Uh-huh. Well, you're just gonna have to talk to her, then!"

"I'm _going_ to talk to her."

"Great!"

"But _only_ because she's not getting away that easily. She's going to admit to my face that she lied to me."

"...Okay, not what I was going for."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm holding out on calling the police, _at your behest,_ I might add."

"Whatever." He sighed. "Just... hear her out before you start yelling, got it? I'd be willing to bet all my worldly possessions that she's not White Fang. She wasn't the type."

Weiss stared at him. "Based on _what,_ exactly?"

"It's... it's a _vibe,_ y'know?"

"Really? _Really?"_

Weiss had given up on questioning her own sanity by the time the sun rose the next day. Still no luck, of course. By that time they'd both stopped talking in complete sentences. Weiss had somehow been cajoled into buying coffee for the both of them, but it didn't help enough. The sun sank past its zenith, Sun decided it would be a wonderful idea to hijack her scroll, and by the time she was finished scolding him for that particular slight it was nearing evening again.

"That's it," she declared, when the sun was well and truly set. "It's late, it's Sunday, and I have classes tomorrow."

"Nope!" Sun cracked his knuckles. "This is when we get lucky, I can _feel_ it."

"She's obviously not still in Vale, or if she is she's gone to ground somewhere. We must have asked half the residents, and she never checked in to any of the hotels you mentioned."

"But..." he flailed his arms. "But she's gotta be here _somewhere!"_

That wasn't true. Vale had a few airship stations, she could have gone just about anywhere from any one of those. Weiss would have pointed that out, but she already knew what he'd say. He'd said it quite a few times, by now.

No partner, no Beacon.

Truth be told, he didn't actually have any more information than she did, at this point. He'd suggested a few hotels she wouldn't have considered, because they were cheap, asked few questions, and admitted Faunus, but those had all turned up empty. She didn't need to let him tag along anymore. But, well...

No partner, no Beacon. Even _he_ was better than dwelling on that.

"Hello? Remnant to Ice Queen!"

...Just barely.

"What _now?"_

"Are you feeling okay?" He made to feel her temperature, and she smacked his hand away. "I mean, usually you would've said something snippy by now."

"For your information—" Weiss started. She didn't get to tell him what exactly it was that was for his own information, because a deafening explosion sounded in the distance. She stumbled, looked up, and saw a column of smoke rising in the direction of the docks.

What were the odds, really, that that was Blake?

...

Well, it was a better lead than they had so far.

The police got there before Weiss and Sun. They were, to a man, crouching behind their cars and firing into the press of crates. Highly volatile crates.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?!" Weiss shouted, gesturing at the police. A few of them turned to her, angry and perhaps also a little bit baffled. "Do you _want_ this place to go up in a chain reaction?"

One officer snapped at her, "They're insulated, and you need to _back off_ and let us do our jobs."

Insulated. Right. Weiss was rather less trusting of that than the police, apparently—having worked with Dust first-hand tended to do that to a person. As for the rest of his point...

A masked face poked out from behind one of the crates, along with the end of a gun. Weiss froze. Those masks—they were White Fang. Sun had been wrong, and she'd been right. Her jaw clenched. She needed to get into those crates. Weiss wasn't about to push through the police during a shootout, though. Of course not. She went around them.

Towards the west there was a high chain-link fence, but a single glyph was all it took for her to leap over it and into the jungle of stacked Dust containers. Sun scrambled to keep up, vaulting over the fence. "You know the cops are gonna assume I'm one of them, right? Hello? Remnant to Ice Queen? I really don't want to get arrested! Or shot!"

Weiss grimaced but didn't respond. She focused instead on trying to judge where the explosion might have come from, but it was dark and much of the smoke had dissipated. A White Fang grunt lurched out from behind one crate, and Weiss was on him before she had the chance to be afraid. He aimed his gun at her, so she slashed it out of his hand with Myrtenaster. When he opened his mouth to cry out, she propelled herself forward with another glyph and cracked the hilt of her rapier across his temple. He didn't go down completely, but he was dazed enough that she could freeze him to the side of one of the crates and rush past him. He started shouting. Sun dashed after her, swearing.

As Weiss pushed deeper into the maze of crates, she heard a man's voice. "—useless mutt! Use that nose of yours and _find her,_ will you?!"

Weiss froze. They couldn't mean her, not this quickly, so... who? And who was talking? He wasn't part of the White Fang, if she'd heard him correctly. Her eyes narrowed, and she moved forward to peer around one of the crates. It took all her willpower not to gasp aloud.

Roman Torchwick, _of all people,_ was standing at the edge of a blackened crater and giving orders to a group of White Fang. There were scorch marks on his suit and his hat was more gray than white, but he himself looked unscathed. Weiss ducked back behind the crate, breathing hard. Sun stared back at her, wide-eyed. This... this didn't make sense. She looked around, seeking some sort of explanation for why a group of murderous terrorist Faunus were working for a man who called them mutts to their faces. None presented itself.

_Fine,_ she thought. That wasn't important right now. She needed to figure out who Torchwick meant by _her—_ a fellow huntress-in-training, perhaps, or a bystander caught up in... whatever was going on here? It didn't really matter. She turned to move away from where Torchwick was, then stopped when she heard a ragged gasp.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

There was silence for a long moment. Then, "...Weiss?"

Weiss' whole body tensed. "You," she gritted out, whirling around to face the direction the voice had come from. "You lying—"

Blake stared up at her from where she sat, huddled between two crates and cradling her left arm in her lap. There was a vicious burn on her shoulder, her clothes were torn and bloody, and most of all... the ribbon in her hair was gone, and in its place stood two ears. Cat's ears. Weiss stared.

"You..." she tried again, searching for the white-hot anger that had carried her there. "You're hurt."

"I—" Blake croaked, then lowered her head. She cringed away, wedging herself even further into her hiding place. It was too dark for Weiss to see much of anything, now, as her body and most of her face were swallowed up in shadow.

"Why are you doing this?" Weiss demanded, keeping her voice low. "As despicable as terrorism is, it at least makes a twisted kind of _sense._ Why work for Torchwick, of all people?!"

"I don't know." Blake met her eyes, looking angry now. "I left. This... this is new. I don't understand it."

"You—" Weiss started, but the sound of footsteps interrupted her. She turned around just in time to see Sun lashing out with a red and gold staff and catching Torchwick across the chest. The thief swore, then skidded to a halt and stared at them.

"There are _more of you?!"_ he shouted, drawing back his cane and swinging it at Sun's head. He ducked. "I have had it up to _here_ with you damn kids!" He whirled on Weiss, then, smashing the cane into her shoulder and forcing her to back away. "When will you learn to _mind. Your. Own. Business!"_ With every word, he lashed out at her with the cane. Sun stepped between them, catching the weapon on his staff.

"This _is_ my business, thank you very much!" Weiss snapped, drawing herself up to her full height and summoning a series of glyphs. Torchwick stared at them for a moment, as if he was trying to do a complex math problem in his head. Blake poked her head out from where she was hiding and shot him.

"Son of a—!"

Weiss blurred past him, catching his shoulder with Myrtenaster as she went. He snarled at her and swung blindly with his cane. Blake was moving, crawling out from where she'd been hiding and getting shakily to her feet. She was leaning heavily on the nearest crate, staring at Sun like he had two heads. Torchwick glanced at her, then at Sun, then at Weiss.

"Well!" he said cheerfully, raising his cane. "I guess it's the end of the line, eh?"

"Quite," Weiss told him. There was already a glyph forming in front of Blake—her Aura had to have broken, if she was that hurt. Bravado aside, she wasn't sure she'd do much better. Front-line defense had never been her thing, and Torchwick hadn't lasted this long as Vale's most wanted by being an idiot or an incompetent fighter. Sun _might_ be able to help, but by this point she decided that relying on their nonexistent luck was probably a bad idea.

With that said... there was nothing saying they had to stick around and take it. She glanced towards her partner—ex-partner?—and jerked her chin upward and to the left. Blake nodded. Weiss summoned another glyph under her, propelling her into the air even as Torchwick lunged forward and slammed into the barrier that had been protecting her. It took the hit, so there hadn't been much need to worry anyway, but now that Blake was no longer cornered it meant that Weiss could run. She grabbed Sun by the wrist, ignoring his yelp of protest, and dragged him around a corner.

There were more White Fang amongst the stacks of crates. Weiss tried not to think about Blake—she'd gone in the opposite direction and it didn't take a skilled fighter like Torchwick to get lucky when someone was out of Aura. It was stupid to worry, anyway, not when she still didn't understand anything that was going on. Blake was an ally of convenience in all this, nothing more. At least until they were out of immediate danger— _then,_ she was going to ask some pointed questions.

People started shooting at them, and Weiss tabled any and all future conundrums to focus on not being hit. Her scroll wasn't set up to read her Aura at the moment but it felt like it was starting to drop. Most of the White Fang were terrible shots, but a few clipped her through either luck or skill. Every sliver they shaved off her defenses could cost her if Torchwick caught up—or if she had to fight Blake or even Sun afterward. "This way!" Sun turned and bolted down a narrow alleyway between two walls of crates, then vaulted over a lower stack at the end. Weiss followed. Three more goons were waiting on the other side. They turned in surprise and raised their guns. She decided she'd rather be somewhere else, and took another sharp turn with Sun hot on her heels.

"Man!" Torchwick wasn't close, but he wasn't far either and his voice carried. "I have got to say, you little squirts get more annoying every time. I feel like I'm trying to hunt rats in a maze." He laughed at that. "Get it? 'Cause cats chase rats?"

Weiss frowned. _He's telling us where he is. Why?_ Then it hit her—it was a joke. A poor one, but it wasn't supposed to be funny. Just to irritate Blake into doing something stupid.

Well, there wasn't an awful lot Weiss could do about that. She focused instead on bringing their path around where she knew Torchwick was, and towards where Blake had been heading.

The edge of the jungle of crates came as a shock. Weiss stumbled past it without thinking, then yelped when one of the police shot her. "Hey!" she protested. He seemed to realize who she was and went pale.

"Miss! Get back behind the—"

A shadow caught her eye as it moved past the border, farther to the west. "Look before you shoot next time," she snapped at him, then darted back into the yard. He shouted after her, but she was mostly focusing on the spot where she'd seen movement. It turned out to be a stack of crates that had been placed near the border. If someone were to climb them, they could make it over the fence. She followed through, looking around for more clues. There was nothing, so she headed in the direction she'd seen the shadow moving.

"Holy crap," Sun wheezed. "What just happened?"

"Hush."

"No, seriously. I did _not_ sign up for getting chased around an abandoned lot by the White Fang."

"Stop _complaining,_ I'm trying to listen!"

"Complaining? That was _awesome!"_

Weiss glared at him, putting a finger over her lips. He rolled his eyes, but fell silent.

"Blake Belladonna," she hissed, as she moved into the warehouse district. "If you don't come out _right now—"_

"Shh!" Blake was staring at her from the mouth of an alleyway, one hand on the wall and the other hanging limply at her side. She paused, tilting her head and staring at Sun. "Who is _that?"_

"I'm Sun!" He held out a hand. Blake kept staring.

"Um, anyway!" Sun rubbed the back of his head. "I'm just gonna—" he gestured behind him. "Let you two talk. Shout if you need me to help beat her up." He pointed at Weiss, and she turned and glared at him. Then he backed away, leaving them alone.

They were silent for a long moment, while Weiss fumed and Blake trembled from he effort of staying upright. Then, finally, "What are you doing here?" It was barely even a whisper, and Weiss had to strain her ears to hear it even from just feet away. She drew herself up, furious.

"What am _I_ doing here?! I was looking for _you_ , you little snake!"

Blake drew back, wary. "Why?"

_Why?_ Weiss took a menacing step forward. "Because I want to hear you say it."

"Say _what?"_ It came out as more of a growl than anything else, low and threatening.

"That you lied. That this whole time you were just—just _pretending,_ and all the while you were one of _them!"_ Weiss hadn't kept her voice down like she should have. She couldn't find it in herself to care.

"I left!" Blake snapped back. "Things were getting out of control, I wasn't willing to become a killer, so _I left."_

Weiss stared at her for a long moment, dumbstruck. Then bafflement turned to anger. "You know when might have been a good time to mention that?! Sometime _between_ implying that you're part of the White Fang and _running away!"_

Blake flinched. "It doesn't matter anyway. I'm leaving."

"Why?" Weiss demanded.

"Why do you care?"

"Because!" Weiss moved forward again, forcing Blake to retreat further into the alley. "Because—because I do!"

"That's not an answer."

Weiss glared at her. "I asked you first!"

"What am I supposed to say?" Blake tried to throw her hands up, only to hiss in pain when one of her arms stayed hanging by her side. "We pretended for a while, but the truth came out. I shouldn't have stayed this long." She moved as if to leave the alley, to step out into the night where she would probably never be seen again. Weiss stepped in front of her.

"If you're going to call the police—"

"Of course not!" Weiss crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "You're still hurt."

"Why do you _care?!"_ Blake gave her a half-hearted shove with her good arm.

"Because I was under the impression that we were _partners."_ Weiss wasn't going to budge. She was a lot of things, but among those that knew her well, _stubborn_ tended to top the list.

"You... want me to stay."

"Yes!" Weiss rolled her eyes. "Of course I do! What part of me telling you that I _needed_ this to work made you think I'd give up at the first sign of trouble?"

"I think we're past the first sign by now," Blake said slowly, as if Weiss didn't already _know_ that.

"Fine—you obviously aren't planning on murdering in my sleep, or you would have done it by now." Blake made an indignant noise, but Weiss was getting impatient and bulled right over her. "And you aren't with the White Fang, because they tried to kill you and—for some _unfathomable_ reason—they're in league with Torchwick. So as far as I'm concerned, us being partners isn't that much worse of an idea than it was Saturday morning."

Blake was staring at her now. Weiss scowled and folded her arms. "What?!"

"And... the fact that I'm a Faunus?"

Weiss hesitated. She was quite sure that Blake saw. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "But... if staying in Beacon means I have to get over it, then I'll get over it." She straightened up, lifting her chin. "So? Don't just stand there gaping like an idiot."

Blake nodded slowly. "I... I guess I'll stay."

"Great!" Weiss nearly screamed at the shout from behind her. She whirled around, drawing Myrtenaster, only to find Sun beaming at them. "Glad I could help!"

* * *

"Just kill me now."

Jaune pitched forward and landed face-first on his bed, muffling his words into his pillow. Ruby patted him on the back. Yang used to do it to her sometimes, and it was really the only thing she could think of. She exchanged a look with Pyrrha over his head. From the look on her face, her partner didn't have much more of an idea how to handle this than she did.

"We're not going to kill you, Jaune," Pyrrha said eventually.

He grumbled something, but it was impossible to tell what. Ruby kept patting him.

Aside from the three of them, the room was deserted. Weiss and Blake were both missing, so _that_ made sense, but she was still having trouble believing that Cardin wasn't even worried. Well, no, maybe not that he wasn't worried, but more that he was being so _obvious_ about how he wasn't worried. He'd just waved to Jaune—if it was possible to wave sarcastically, then that was definitely what he was doing—and left with ERMN.

Of course, Ruby wasn't about to let her first friend in Beacon sit alone in his room all night. Especially when he was determined to stay up the whole time—in his words, so that he could cling to every second that passed before he'd have to try and explain all this to Professor Goodwitch. Ruby and Pyrrha had both decided to stay up with him. There was a stack of sugary snacks, energy drinks, and coffee sitting in the middle of Jaune's bed, slowly (or not so slowly) dwindling. Pyrrha hadn't had any, and her eyelids were starting to droop a little.

"C'mon Jaune!" Ruby tried. "There's still time for them to come back!"

He sighed, then rolled over so that he wasn't talking directly into his pillow. "It's two in the morning. If they're not back by now..." Without warning, he flopped back onto his stomach and muffled a shout into his bed. "They're gonna find out," he mumbled. "We're going to go to class tomorrow and Goodwitch is going to ask me where my team is, and I'm going to have _no idea._ And then they'll expel me. Or _super_ expel me, for being the worst leader in the history of Beacon."

"They won't expel you," Pyrrha assured him.

"That's worse!" He pushed himself into a sitting position, wild-eyed. "Then I'm _alone with Cardin!"_

Ruby winced. She was at a loss again, so she defaulted to her experience with Zwei and rubbed his head. He slumped.

Pyrrha spoke up. "Perhaps they'll decide they can't have a two-person team and they'll split you up? Add you to one first-year team and Cardin to the other?"

"Not it!" Ruby blurted out, putting a finger on her nose. "Oh, wait, that was hypothetical. Um, never mind."

Jaune laughed. "It'd be nice to be on a team with you guys," he agreed, "but I don't know. I'd probably drag you down."

"No, you wouldn't," Pyrrha said firmly.

"I'm not much of a fighter..."

"You're willing to stand up for what you believe in." She laid a hand on his shoulder and smiled, but it seemed a bit... off. "You're trustworthy and brave."

_Unlike Sky, you mean._ Ruby fidgeted with the hem of her cloak, shifting uncomfortably where she sat on Jaune's bed.

"Anyway." Jaune coughed a bit awkwardly, and Ruby realized that she and Pyrrha had both zoned out at the same time. "More coffee, anyone?"

"No, thank y—ahh!" Pyrrha cut off and yawned, then shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Ruby couldn't help copying her. "Whoops."

Jaune laughed. "You're _sure_ you guys don't want to go to bed."

"Yep!" Ruby sat ramrod straight. "I'm not tired at..." she yawned again, "...all!"

"We're staying up as long as you are," Pyrrha agreed.

"...Thanks, guys." Jaune grinned at them. "I have _no_ idea what I'd do without you. Probably pace until I set the rug on fire."

Ruby giggled. She was about to add that Yang might sue for copyright infringement when she was interrupted by noises outside the door. A quiet thump, hushed voices. A small _click_ as the lock disengaged. Slowly, silently, it eased open. Blake was standing in the doorway, leaning heavily on Weiss' shoulder. Both of them were staring into the room like they'd just been caught breaking and entering.

There was a long, frozen silence. Weiss and Blake stared at Jaune. Ruby and Pyrrha stared at them. Jaune's face started turning red.

Then, suddenly, he leapt to his feet and pointed dramatically at his teammates. "And _what_ time do you call this?!" he demanded, putting his free hand on his hip.

"...Late?" Blake tried. Weiss glanced at the clock and cringed.

"It's _two in the morning!_ And where the heck have you guys been, anyway?! Why didn't either of you answer your scrolls and _no,_ that didn't count, Weiss! You didn't explain anything! Like why some random guy had your scroll!"

"I was... um..." Blake shot a panicked look at Weiss.

"We were... staying in Vale," Weiss said. "Together. With a friend. And we're back now!"

Jaune squinted at Blake. "Is that a sling?"

She tried to shuffle back out of the doorway. Weiss gave her a pointed look. "Yes?"

Ruby watched in horrified fascination as Jaune's face went white, then red again, then something bordering on purple. "What the _hell?!_ We're supposed to be teammates, you can't just run off into Vale and get hurt without even telling me where you're going, or when you'll be back, or, you know, _make sure I won't have to explain all this to Goodwitch."_

"You won't," Blake said, her eyes on the floor. "Have to explain, I mean. She knows."

_"I_ don't!" Jaune rounded on Weiss. "I don't know _anything_ except that apparently _you_ didn't know where Blake was either when I talked to you yesterday!"

"I, um..." She was looking anywhere and everywhere except at Jaune. "I was a bit distracted at the time."

"By what? Mystery dude?!"

They exchanged a look. "Um..." Weiss trailed off.

"Well..." Blake tried.

"Gyah!" Jaune started pacing. "First you disappear out of nowhere. Fine. Pretty much par for the course with this team. Then you don't show up again by the next morning. You know what? Whatever! I figure as long as one of you didn't kill the other and flee the country, it's probably fine!"

He rounded on them, pointing a shaking finger in their general direction. "Then it gets to lunchtime. I panic, call each of you something like fifty times, and _finally_ someone I've never met before answer's Weiss' scroll for her. And then when you get on the line, you just say something vague and terrifying about how you'll call when you find Blake and _not to worry_ as if that isn't totally what any sane person would do! Of course, you _don't_ call, ever, but it's not like that's surprising at this point! And now you're back, and you look like someone just... just _blew you up or something!"_ He gestured at Blake, who was looking more than a little bit worse for the wear. She wasn't wearing her own clothes, but rather a simple pair of pants and t-shirt that revealed quite a few minor burns on her arms. "So... _what happened?"_

"We were in the docks," Blake admitted, keeping her head down. "I saw some... someone. They were trying to steal a whole airship's worth of Dust."

"Was it Torchwick?" Ruby asked, perking up. Blake glanced at Weiss, then nodded.

"Okay." Jaune heaved a sigh. "Okay. You know what? Whatever. I'm not getting expelled yet, so that's something."

"What do you mean, yet?" Pyrrha demanded.

"You're not getting expelled!" Ruby insisted, at almost exactly the same time.

Jaune winced. "Oh. Yeah, um... Goodwitch told us we have to get our act together, or we can't be a team anymore. I'm not sure if that means we leave, or just try again next year."

"It's irrelevant," Weiss said. Ruby stared at her—she was _smiling._ It was... creepy.

"What?" Jaune looked horrified. "Are you guys leaving Beacon?"

"What? No!"

Blake gave him a small smile. "We're saying... we think we can work together from now on."

Jaune stared at them for several long seconds. "You know what?" he said eventually.

"What?" Blake asked, looking wary.

"It's really hard to be mad at you now that you've said that." Jaune sighed and flopped down on his bed. "So... we're going to be an actual team?"

"A three-person team," Weiss corrected him. "Unless you can figure out how to get Cardin to be less of a boneheaded cretin. But we'll probably be able to graduate."

"Hah." Jaune let his arms stretch out over his head until his fingertips hit the wall. Every muscle in his body seemed to relax at once. Then he started belly-laughing. "Yes! _Yes!_ Pyrrha, Ruby, I changed my mind! Don't kill me!"

"We won't, Jaune." Pyrrha smiled down at him.

Ruby got up and let out a cheer. "To Alabaster!"

"To Alabaster!" The others all managed to join in that time, in ragged unison.

"Yeah!" Ruby whooped. "You're finally gonna be a real tea—"

Someone banged on the wall behind her, and she fell to the ground with a yelp. Then they shouted, "Would you people just shut up already?! _It's two in the goddamn morning!"_

"Heh. Sorry!" Jaune called back.

Ruby rubbed sheepishly at the back of her neck. "Well," she said, careful to keep her voice low. "I guess we should head back, right Pyr—uh, Pyrrha?" Her partner was slumped against the wall, fast asleep.

Jaune shrugged. "If you guys want you can stay here. I'll take the floor." Then he did a double-take and looked to his teammates. "Um, if that's okay with you guys."

Weiss made a face like she minded very much, then seemed to deflate. "Fine," she sighed. "I suppose it's our fault you three are so exhausted."

"Don't care," Blake mumbled. She'd already curled up on her own bed and looked half-unconscious.

Ruby glanced to where Pyrrha was sitting, then gently pushed her over so that she was lying down and wouldn't hurt her neck. She gave the last remaining bed a wary look. "Uh... are you sure I shouldn't take the floor? It's your room."

"You're the guest," Jaune said.

"But... but I don't wanna impose!"

"It's really no trouble!"

"Lie down or leave," Weiss snapped. Ruby lay down. She was very careful to sleep on top of all the blankets.

* * *

There were only twenty minutes left for breakfast when Jaune walked in with both fists in the air, strutting like he'd just been crowned king of the world. Nora narrowed her eyes, as if she could somehow zoom in on his brain and figure out what was going on in there. Had he finally snapped?

Then, his two errant teammates followed him in. They were, unlike the last time they'd been in the cafeteria together, relaxed and smiling. Awkward and tired, maybe, but not tense. Nora jumped on the bench and let out a cheer. "They didn't kill each other!"

Yang let out a whoop, then high-fived her. Ruby and Pyrrha brought up the rear of the group, both looking about ready to keel over and fall asleep on the floor. They grinned when they got to the table BRYN and Ren (and, unfortunately, Sky) had taken over. "Jaune's team isn't dead!" Ruby announced cheerfully. "And I need all the coffee!"

"Go Jaune!" Nora whooped. She gave him a high-five over the table.

"We're not gonna be expelled!" He hopped up and down a few times, grinning from ear-to-ear, then jumped onto the bench next to a confused-looking Sky.

Blake seated herself beside her leader and smiled. "You seem surprised."

He laughed. "Surprised? I'd be _surprised_ if Oobleck gave us a week with no homework. I'm... something more surprised than surprised."

"Shocked?" Russel suggested. "Amazed? Really frickin' confused? Wait, my bad, that's us."

Nora opened her mouth to cheer Jaune on some more—it had been a really long couple of weeks feeling sorry for him, after all. Before she could, though, she noticed that Weiss was still standing. Then, she stalked forward and slammed both her hands down on the table, staring Nora dead in the eye.

"Nora Valkyrie," she declared, "you are a _genius."_

Dead silence descended on their table. Dove choked on something he had been eating and started hacking and coughing. Nora beamed and said, "You betcha!" Then she cocked her head in confusion. "Wait, why am I a genius?"

Weiss cleared her throat and shifted from foot to foot. "No particular reason." She stepped a little to her left and sat down next to Blake. Jaune seemed surprised he wasn't having to play human wall again. Then his smile widened even further.

"Man," he sighed. "Not even classes could ruin this."

"We have a quiz in History," Russel reminded him. Nora kicked him. Judging by the way he winced, Yang had done the same from his other side.

"Nope." Jaune closed his eyes, letting a blissful expression pass across his face. "Don't even care."

"Oh, _no!"_ Weiss' eyes flew open wide. "I hardly studied all weekend!"

"You'll be fine," Blake said, rolling her eyes.

"I haven't even done the reading," Russel added helpfully. Dove shot him a reproachful look.

"Quizzes are only quizzes," Jaune mumbled. "All is well. The world is a beautiful place."

Nora giggled. "This is fun."

"He really _is_ high on life," Russel said, awestruck. He flicked a pea at Jaune.

"Russ..." Dove sighed. "Must you?" The pea bounced off the blond's forehead and landed on the table. One blue eye cracked open, then closed again.

"Um..." Ruby was staring at something over Nora's head. She twisted around to look. "I think I might be about to ruin the mood."

Cardin was sitting closer to them than normal. Team ERMN was with him, but they weren't the only ones—he was right next to a brown-haired rabbit Faunus. Something about his posture seemed distinctly unfriendly.

"Ugh." Jaune let his head fall forward and hit the table. "Right. Forgot I had three teammates for a minute there."

"It was nice while it lasted," Weiss agreed. "But what in Remnant is he doing?"

Even as their table watched, Cardin reached over and tugged on one of the girl's ears. She tried to pull away. "Aw, c'mon Thumper! No need to be so jumpy." He guffawed.

"That little—" Yang seethed. Russel frowned, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. And Dove... he let out a quick, sharp exhale through his nose. It was the kind of sound he always made when he was trying not to laugh at one of Yang's terrible jokes.

Nora's eyes narrowed, but before she could say anything her attention was diverted by the rest of team ABSW. They were acting... weird. Blake was scowling, and Weiss elbowed her and raised an eyebrow. Her partner's brow furrowed, then she nodded slowly.

"He's our teammate," she said. "We should... try to deal with him, somehow."

"Agreed." Jaune heaved a sigh. "And the headache is back."

With that, he, Weiss, and Blake all got up and headed for the other table. Nora stared after them. "I hope they beat him up." Yang gave her a high-five without turning away from the action.

"What?" Cardin demanded as Blake reached him and tapped him on the shoulder. Her reply was too quiet for them to hear at that distance, but Weiss' was not.

"You're leaving. Now."

"Seriously?" He reached out to shove her, but Jaune got in the way. He said something else, including Cardin's name. Nora didn't quite catch it. Blake touched the girl he'd been picking on gently on the shoulder. She nodded, turned, and fled the room.

Cardin moved as though to follow her, but Weiss caught his arm and Jaune stepped in front of him. Nora grinned. It was the perfect mix of heart-warming teamwork and schadenfreude. The three of them dragged him off together, and Nora didn't have to hear everything they were saying to know that all three of them were taking turns scolding him.

"Aw," she and Yang cooed in unison.

"Am I the only one that thinks it's weird that their idea of team bonding is manhandling their fourth member?" Russel asked.

"We crashed an airship into Beacon during our getting-to-know-you period," Dove reminded him. "That lost us the right to judge literally anyone else. Ever."

"Unless they bond over killing Cardin," Yang suggested hopefully.

Nora managed a grin at that, but she found that it had slipped off her face only a moment later. Her partner had been trying not to _laugh._ She gave Dove a sidelong look. He raised an eyebrow, confused.

"This shall not stand," she muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing, Dove!"

"No, really, what? Nora? It's never good when you're quiet..."


	16. Getting to Know You [1]

Red eyes gleamed in the half-dark of the forest. Slaver ran from between the monster's teeth, and a low growl pierced the air. Sky stifled a scream as a Beowolf's jaws snapped shut just inches from his nose. He recoiled, tripped over himself, and landed on his butt with a pathetic little huffing noise.

Above him, Professor Port held the monster nonchalantly by the scruff of its neck.

"Really, my dear boy!" he declared, as the Grimm thrashed and snarled. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to be a successful huntsman like me!"

"Yes, sir," Sky mumbled. He got up and inched a little closer to the captured Beowolf. It swiped at him, and he stepped back with a yelp. Port hauled it into the waiting cage, chuckling when it clamped its teeth down on his upper arm.

"Oh, you," he cooed at it, prying its jaws apart and shoving it back into the cage. Sky tried to hide how badly he was shaking.

"Why am I even here?" Sky grumbled. "I'm _definitely_ not making this easier for you. If anything, I'm in your way."

Port chuckled. "I'm sure you'd be of more use to the school if Glynda had sat you down with a stack of paperwork," he agreed, slapping Sky on the back. He hacked and wheezed, trying to get his breath back. "Of course, it wouldn't be much of a punishment then, now would it?"

"I guess not," he said, glancing guiltily to the ground.

"You're quite fortunate that you weren't expelled," Port went on. His voice had lowered to something almost gentle. "After all, you _did—_ "

"Yeah. I know."

Port hummed knowingly. "Indeed. We can't train heroes that will run at the first sign of trouble!"

Sky nodded, face burning. "Why—" his voice cracked. "Why didn't she?"

"Hum?"

"Expel me, I mean."

"Ah!" Port smiled. His moustache wiggled. "Indeed, fleeing the scene as you did was the pinnacle of cowardice, my dear boy."

"I _know_ that!" Sky snapped back. He flinched away. "Sorry."

"Well, then." Port raised a bushy white eyebrow. "Why do _you_ think you were allowed to stay? And with only a few extra detentions, at that?"

"I don't know. Was... was it Ozpin?"

"On the contrary," Port said, with a knowing chuckle. "It was Glynda who convinced the headmaster that you ought to stay."

Sky stared, dumbfounded. "She... what?" He still remembered the dressing-down she'd given him. It had taken nearly half an hour, and by the end he was shaking so badly it had taken him about twice as long as normal to get back to his dorm. And after _that—_ well, he didn't like to think too much about that.

"You _called_ her, dear boy. Don't you remember?"

He nodded dumbly.

Port smiled again. "I imagine that was quite frightening."

"Are... are you serious?" Sky stared at him. "I just ran away, and all I did was..." he trailed off. He remembered accidentally dialing a Dust shop he frequented, because he was trembling and had missed the button. The way his heart had been beating in his throat.

"Exactly. You—along with nearly every student ever to pass through this fine institution in the past decade—are just as frightened of our Glynda as you are the creatures of Grimm. And yet, you called her to report your own failure, in the interest of protecting your teammates."

"Oh."

"It's not what we look for, in our students. We look for those who would face million-to-one odds without flinching. We look for natural heroes." Port laid a hand on his shoulder. "But we're all only human. You made a mistake that night, but you didn't hide it. You didn't pretend not to have gone with them, or go back to Beacon hoping that they would be alright. You faced your own failure, and in the end you likely saved their lives."

"I still ran away."

"That you did." Port began walking further into the forest, leaving the Beowolf snarling and snapping at the bars of its cage. He turned to look over his shoulder. "We believe heroism can be taught, Mr. Lark. _That_ is why you are still here."

Sky looked away, his throat tightening. When he could speak again, he asked, "What about my teammates?"

Port stopped walking. "What is it you want to know, my boy?"

"How... how to I make it up to them?"

The professor was silent for a while. Then, eventually, he put a hand on Sky's shoulder. It was gentler, this time. Probably the gentlest gesture he'd ever seen from Port. "That is going to be much more difficult. As professors, we understand that you meant no ill. We understand that you are, as yet, still a child. Your classmates are not professionally distant in the same way as Glynda, Bart, or I. It is much more personal for them."

Sky wished Port would move away. The kind gesture was out of character, and it wasn't helping him stay calm. "But..."

"That doesn't mean they _can't_ forgive. It's a matter of proving yourself." Port clapped him on the back again. Sky was pretty sure he'd have bruises later. "I'm sure I don't know your team as well as you do, but they hardly seem the type to hold grudges."

"But they _do."_ Sky looked at the ground. "Or... I don't know, they _remember._ It's not like I can just ignore it."

Port hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I can't say I know the answer to that, dear boy. But I _do_ know that avoiding them likely isn't going to help."

Sky flushed. "I'm not..."

"Not _entirely."_ Port chuckled. "You sit with them in class, at mealtimes... but you don't talk very much, now do you?"

"No..."

"So! Force yourself to interact with them. Prove to them—and to yourself—that you have the courage to stay by their side when next you are threatened. It will take time, but I think you'll find that you'll be stronger for it."

Sky very much doubted that. He thanked Professor Port anyway.

* * *

 _"So..."_ Nora grinned and shifted so that her head was just above Dove's shoulder. He leaned away from her and nearly fell off his chair. "I have a question."

He heaved a sigh. "Yes, Nora?"

"What do you think of... Velvet?"

"Who?"

"The Faunus Cardin was picking on," Yang supplied helpfully. Nora made a frantic shushing gesture with her hand, just outside Dove's line of sight. "I mean, uh... I think?"

Dove turned to look at Nora, one eyebrow raised. While he wasn't paying attention to her, Yang leaned forward and mouthed, _'What?'_

"Um..." Nora shifted uneasily. He was getting really good at the Ren Look. Maybe Ren was giving him lessons? She should ask, later. "Yep, that's her! So, what do you think?"

"I've barely spoken to her," he pointed out.

"Well, _yeah,_ but what do you think?"

"She seems... timid? I don't know."

"Is timid bad?"

Dove put his face in his hands. Across the table, Yang spread her hands as if to say, _'Seriously, what are you doing?'_ Nora pointed at her and glared. She rolled her eyes and went back to her history textbook. Russel, who had been watching the entire exchange in bemusement, started chuckling.

"Shut up, Russ," Dove grumbled. "And, well... there are worse things to be than timid. I just wonder how she'll manage as a huntress."

"Jaune's pretty timid," Yang pointed out.

"You're making his point," Russel snarked.

"Hey!" Nora gave him a look. "Keep that up and we're gonna have to get you a jar."

"...What?"

"Y'know, where you have to put in a lien for every time you act like a jerk."

"Oh." He frowned. "I don't like that idea."

"Then stop being a jerk."

He huffed a little and started playing with one of his daggers. Nora waved her hands frantically. "But seriously! Let Dove talk."

"I was mostly done—"

"No! You were not! Keep going." This conversation felt like it was getting away from her, just a bit. Maybe she should've let Yang help.

Dove was giving her a really weird look, but he just shrugged. "I guess I feel like being naturally timid probably makes it harder, that's all. She seems... nice."

"... _Naturally_ timid," Nora repeated. "So, like... she can't change it?"

"I... are you asking me if we can fight our own natures? Because that's a really philosophical question and you fell asleep the last time I tried to explain why some people think teleportation terminals would be murder."

"I'm asking if _she_ would have a harder time changing it than Jaune," Nora said. Wait, no! That was _way_ too obvious! Abort, abort!

Across the table, Yang suddenly perked up. Russel and Dove just looked confused. _Okay, disaster averted._ Thank the gods for dense teammates.

 _'Help me!'_ she mouthed at Yang. The other girl made a strangled noise that was probably a suppressed laugh. _Ugh._

"Maybe?" Dove looked puzzled. "With Jaune it might be more learned behavior, rather than genetic. That and he's on a team with Weiss and Cardin, so if he doesn't get more assertive he's going to end up as their doormat."

"Uh- _huh,"_ Nora said. Dove was giving her a _really_ strange look. Yang had stopped almost-laughing and was now frowning. Russel seemed blissfully unaware of any of this.

"Is there any particular reason you asked—"

"Nope!" Nora stood up, grabbed Yang by the scarf, and charged out of the library. She yelped as the fabric pulled against her throat. "We gotta go spar!"

"Wait!" Russel bolted from the table and followed after them. "I wanna spar too! Save me from the books!" There was a muffled thump from behind them, probably Dove being a weirdo and banging his head on the table again.

As soon as they were out in the hallway, Nora looked around suspiciously. There was no one there. She let out a long breath and sagged against the wall. "Okay. Team. We need to have a meeting."

"What?" Russel stared at her. "Weren't we about to spar? Um... should I get Dove?"

"No!" Nora seized him by the vest. He jerked back and hit his head on the wall.

 _"Ow!_ Okay, what's going on?"

"We're staging an intervention!" Nora declared. "Maybe. Or maybe something more subtle."

"Hang on... _you_ want to do something subtle." Russel took a deep breath. "Okay. Um. Why? And should I get a one-way ticket out of Vale now, or can it wait until after dinner?"

"Dove's anti-Faunus," Nora explained. Russel choked.

Yang just sighed. "Yeah, I'd been worried about that."

"Wait, _huh?_ Where'd you two pull that from?"

"He said Velvet was timid because genetics," Nora reminded him. "And before, when Cardin was teasing her... I think he was trying not to laugh." She wilted a little at that. _Just_ when she was starting to think that he was an acceptable vice-Ren...

"I mean, what do we even do about that?" Yang asked. "It's not like we can just go up to him and tell him to stop."

"Wait, wait, time-out." Russel made a little T with his hands. "I'm still catching up here. So... Dove doesn't like Faunus?"

"I mean..." Nora frowned. "He was still pretty polite about it, but it's _Dove,_ he's pretty polite about everything. It's just... he's being _weird_ about it."

"Okay. So you want to stage an intervention."

"Or something!" Nora finished. "The or something part is super important, because I'm pretty sure an intervention wouldn't work."

"It _might,"_ Yang hedged. "It's just... probably not our best option."

Russel rubbed his forehead. "Okay. This is not what I figured I'd be doing with my Thursday."

"Too bad!" Nora poked him in the chest. "As his teammates, it is our _solemn duty_ to make sure that he doesn't suck! Or be a jerk that dies alone!"

"What was that about dying alone?"

Nora yelped and whirled around. Dove was behind her, eyebrows raised. "I'm not sure whether to be amused or terrified right now," he admitted. "I don't think I've ever seen you that startled."

"You saw _nothing!"_ she insisted, pointing dramatically at him. She nearly poked him in the eye, but he leaned back just in time. "Also, you heard nothing! Except, wait, how much did you hear?"

Dove turned to Yang and Russel. "So... on a scale from one to ten, how bad is the property damage going to be?"

"Probably a two," Yang said, "but that really depends on you."

"...That is neither helpful nor comforting."

* * *

Blake didn't hate the cafeteria. It was nice, in its own way. Being around a group of people that were as open and friendly as Brine and Raspberry generally were was _different,_ but it was a good different. On the other hand, well... it was loud. And crowded. And today, she felt like something a bit less hectic.

"Are you _sure?"_ Blake led the way onto the grounds, and Weiss peered out across the lawn with a critical eye. "I don't know if this is within the rules."

Jaune laughed nervously. "I mean, we go to school with Brine. As long as we don't blow anything up, I don't think it'll matter that much."

Weiss raised an eyebrow at her from behind him. Blake flushed.

"Right." She coughed into her hand. "It's just up here."

They walked through a small copse of trees. On the other side, the lawn sloped gently downwards until they reached a lone oak tree overlooking a pond. At its feet, where they would be hidden from sight by the hill and the woods behind them, was a bench.

"So _this_ is where you kept disappearing to!" Jaune jogged over to touch the wizened trunk of the oak.

"Along with the library, but yes."

"It's beautiful." Weiss smiled. "Better yet, no one would put a bench here if it was out of bounds."

Jaune gently placed his tray of food on the ground and flopped down beside it. "Aren't you going to sit down like a normal person?" Weiss asked, as she reclined on the bench.

"There isn't room," he pointed out. Blake shrugged and took a seat next to her partner. She might have argued with him, but she was hungry. That, and she was quietly celebrating the fact that Weiss hadn't moved away the second they got within stabbing distance of one another.

"This is much nicer than the library," Weiss observed. "For eating, I mean. Or... anything, really."

"I like the library, too."

"Well, _yes,_ but it's crowded by comparison."

Jaune groaned. "I'm never going to get you two to stay in the dining hall again, am I?"

"You will," Blake promised. "But sometimes quiet is nice."

"Very," Weiss agreed.

He shrugged. "Suit yourselves, I guess."

Blake started systematically demolishing her food. They were fresh from Goodwitch's combat class, after all. In point of fact...

"Should we celebrate our first victory?" she asked, raising a cardboard carton of apple juice. Weiss gave a _look,_ shrugged, then tapped it with her water bottle. Jaune got up to do the same.

"To winning a three on four fight," Weiss said. Jaune inhaled some of his water and started coughing.

"Let's not say that around Cardin," Blake suggested. It wasn't that she disagreed—in fact, she'd argue that it would be easier to win bouts if he were added to the other team instead—but she didn't want to deal with his reaction.

Jaune groaned. "I don't want to think about him too much."

"Agreed," Weiss said.

"Except—"

"Jaune, no."

"But I've gotta deal with him _sometime,"_ Jaune insisted. "I have no idea what to do, please help me!"

Weiss sighed. "I don't think what I did would help. Both parties have to be trying to make it work. Or, at the very least, not... whatever Cardin is."

"What about the last bit of advice?" Blake suggested.

"Wait, advice?"

Weiss froze. "No," she snapped, turning and glaring at Blake. "Don't you dare."

She tried not to laugh, she really did. Her shoulders shook.

"I feel like I'm missing something here." Jaune looked from her to Weiss and back again.

Weiss was already going from pink to red. "It's _nothing,"_ she snarled.

"It's adorable," Blake corrected her.

"Shut up!"

"Uh, what?" Jaune was starting to look concerned.

"I _may_ have requested some assistance in... overcoming some of our initial difficulties in forming a cohesive unit."

"Huh?"

"She asked Dove how to make friends," Blake explained. Weiss glared at her.

"Oh." Jaune took a moment to process that. "You're right, that is adorable."

"I know where you sleep."

Jaune held up his hands in surrender. Then he frowned and said, "Wait, what was the last thing? The thing that might help?"

"Almost die together," Weiss replied. "And unlike _some_ people, I'm going to add a disclaimer—it's Nora's advice."

"Oh."

"It worked, though," Blake pointed out.

"Everyone keeps telling me that, and it's not _nearly_ as reassuring as you think it is!"

Jaune raised his hand as if he was in class. "Wait, how dangerous are we talking, exactly?"

"What part of the phrase, _'almost die'_ struck you as ambiguous?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, okay. So that's probably best saved for a last resort."

"It's surprisingly effective, though," Blake said without thinking.

Jaune gave her a _look._ "Wait, you _almost died?!"_

She winced. "Well..."

"Why do _all_ my friends almost die fighting Torchwick?! Seriously, I'm like... five for ten right now, and that's counting people like Dove and Nora who I've literally never talked to one-on-one."

"We _are_ training to be Hunters," Weiss pointed out.

"So? Still doesn't explain why it's always Torchwick!"

Blake caught herself fiddling with her lunch tray and put it to the side. She pulled out her scroll, glanced at the time.

"It's getting late," she said.

Weiss frowned. "It's only half past six. The sun hasn't even set."

"I have homework." She held up her arm—only just mended, thanks to her aura. "After this, I'm a bit behind."

"Okay," Jaune said grudgingly. Weiss just looked at her, obviously skeptical.

Blake turned and headed back inside, leaving the two of them behind. The library wasn't quite empty at this time. Dove was there, as he often was. For some bizarre reason Nora was next to him, reading—and shooting weird looks at him when he wasn't paying attention. Blake could maybe have sat closer to them to figure out what that was about, but she didn't want to be distracted and she didn't really want to know.

She made sure to choose a particularly quiet, secluded corner, one that was out of sight of the main door. It was lost in the depths of the biographies section, tucked away behind a shelf almost entirely dedicated to an Atlesian prince who had written over thirty volumes for his own autobiography. It was, in other words, as deserted as it was possible to get inside Beacon.

The line about getting behind on her homework because of her arm hadn't necessarily been a _lie,_ it just... wasn't entirely accurate. She'd been neglecting reading assignments in favor of research, which was further slowed by the fact that she had to make do with her left hand. With her weapon she was ambidextrous, but as for _writing..._ it was slow. Excruciatingly slow.

Yesterday, though, she'd finally gotten rid of the sling and had been able to make some headway. Digging a notebook from her bag, she let it fall open to somewhere near the middle. A pencil drawing of Adam jumped out at her, and she closed it with a _snap._

"He wouldn't do that," she murmured. She believed him capable of a _lot,_ but working with humans... and one like Torchwick? It didn't make sense, and as nice as a picnic on the grounds had been, she couldn't afford to get distracted for too long. Reopening the notebook a little more carefully this time, she flicked through the pages until she found the most recent one.

 _'Why work for Torchwick?'_ was written near the top of the page. Below it were several scrawled theories, each less credible than the next.

 _'Why would Torchwick work with the White Fang?'_ The answers to that question were just as far from her reach.

There seemed to be _precedent,_ though. Nothing concrete, maybe, but she'd found quite a few references to Torchwick stealing from shops that _just so happened_ to be unwilling to serve Faunus. That was one possible answer to her first question, except that it was _Adam._ He wouldn't stoop to the level of acting as dumb muscle to a bigoted thug just because they were hitting what he considered acceptable targets. He didn't _need_ to, he could just rob the shops himself.

"So, this is where you've been hiding."

Blake nearly jumped out of her own skin at the sound of Weiss' voice behind her. She slammed the notebook shut and whirled around, her heart in her throat. Her partner was standing with her arms folded, tapping one foot and raising an eyebrow.

"What?" she demanded.

Weiss shook her head. "That has to be the least convincing denial I've ever heard."

"You think I'm up to something." Blake couldn't quite keep the hurt out of her voice.

"Oh, for the _love_ of— _Yes,_ I think you're doing some kind of research, very secretly, when you think no one is watching. Which you are. What I _don't_ know is why, because quite frankly I can't think of a single thing you could be doing that would be worth hiding."

"It's nothing."

"Spare me."

Blake looked down at the table in front of her. "It's nothing illegal."

"The fact that you felt the need to specify that worries me."

"Or dangerous."

"And _that_ is a blatant lie."

"Look, I'm handling it!" Blake glared at her. "So just leave me alone, alright?"

"No." Weiss lifted her chin and huffed. "You obviously _aren't_ handling it. Your schoolwork is suffering—and not _just_ because of that arm—you've skipped at least four meals that I'm aware of, I woke up in the middle of the night on Tuesday and you weren't in the dorm—"

"I've been busy, yes, but it's... I'm fine."

"Yesterday you tripped over your own feet leaving the dorm and almost brained yourself on the floor. I expect that from Jaune, but from you it's rather alarming."

"I have it handled. It's just... it's more important than classwork, alright? More important than sleep, or... I can't afford to get distracted."

Saying that was a mistake. Weiss' eyes widened almost immediately. "You're investigating the White Fang!" she hissed.

Blake flinched. There was a note of betrayal in her tone. "Look, it's not like that! I'm not part of that anymore, I—"

"I _know_ that," Weiss snapped, waving her hand irritably. "But were you seriously going to try to figure out what they were doing without telling me?"

"That's not—It isn't like that, either. I'm just... It's something I have to do."

"Ugh." Weiss rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "And missing meals? Is that also something you have to do? What about showing up to sparring with barely any sleep?"

"Look, I appreciate your concern but I can't just stop. This is too big, it doesn't make any sense and none of the implications are good. I'm not going to stand by while whatever Torchwick and the White Fang are planning goes through. I'm... I'm _not_ going to stop."

Weiss drew herself up and looked Blake dead in the eye. "I'm not suggesting that you _stop._ I'm offering to help."

Blake stared at her. "What?"

"Isn't it obvious? With two people gathering information, we can get just as much done without shutting ourselves in the library at ungodly hours of the night."

"No."

Weiss scowled. "Look, if this is about our disagreement—"

"It's not," Blake promised. "I just don't want you getting mixed up in this. It's _dangerous,_ Weiss. I don't want to—"

"Paint a target on my back?" Weiss turned partway around and put a hand over her own shoulder, her palm resting on the snowflake emblem stitched into her jacket. "Like, say, this one?"

"...Well, yes."

"That ship had already sailed by the time I was _conceived,_ Blake. You're being ridiculous."

"I'm _not!"_ She started fidgeting with the notebook in front of her, her ears pulling back despite her attempts to keep them still. The bow on her head twitched. "That's exactly why you shouldn't be getting involved. They're already going to target you—"

"More than someone who is apparently a—" Weiss cut off, then whispered, "Well, _you know."_

"Maybe!" Blake threw her hands up. "It doesn't really matter, this is my responsibility and I'm not going to just let it go."

Weiss, looking distinctly unimpressed, just pointed to her jacket again.

"I know! I know! But..." She slumped. "I don't want you getting hurt because of me."

"I can take care of myself, thank you very much. And besides, at the moment you're only doing research. A frankly irresponsible amount of research that is starting to negatively affect your health, maybe, but it's not as if one of the books is going to try and assassinate me in my sleep."

"You're deliberately missing the point."

"And _you_ are just being difficult." Weiss heaved a sigh. "Look—I'm giving you an ultimatum. Either let me help you, or so help me I will recruit Jaune and we will _make_ you eat and sleep. Seven hours a night, three meals a day."

Blake glared at her. "I don't need to be treated like a child."

"No, you don't." Weiss sighed. "But you _do_ need to take care of yourself. Either share some of the workload, or I'm afraid you'll have to accept progressing a little slower."

"I told you, I don't want you getting involved."

"Why?" Weiss spread her hands in exasperation. "We're supposed to be partners, aren't we?"

"Yes, but—"

"And has it even occurred to you that I might be _just_ as invested as you into what the group that's been all but hunting my family for years is doing?"

 _"Yes,_ but—"

"So what's the problem?!"

"I _told_ you." Blake stared at the floor, taking in the subtle patterns in the worn red carpeting. "I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

"If I get hurt," Weiss said, slowly and deliberately, "it will be because _I_ decided that I wanted to help. It's _my_ choice if I want to put myself at risk, understand?"

Blake nodded.

"And we _are_ still talking about research. Just so we're clear."

"For now. I don't know where else this might lead. It... honestly, I know how this sounds and I hate saying it, but it looks like a conspiracy. There _has_ to be a bigger picture in here somewhere, because the picture we have has the White Fang somehow deciding to obey a human that mocks their heritage to their faces."

Weiss hummed agreement. "Even I could tell that was strange."

"It's not just strange, it's... it's _inconceivable._ I remember—I mean, there was—I've heard some of the more prominent members talk, before. They wouldn't work with him. And that's not me trying to... to _justify_ what they're doing, or imagining that they have nobler intentions than they do. I'm saying that they don't trust humans in general, they _hate_ being ordered around by them, and a human like _him?_ I can't imagine how anyone would get them to sit down at a table with him for five minutes without one of them killing him, let alone letting him bring some of their newer members as hired muscle."

She stopped then, realizing that Weiss was smirking. "What?"

"Does this mean you're willing to work together?"

"No!" She hesitated. "Or... maybe. I don't _know,_ I just..."

"It's okay." Weiss smiled—it was oddly soft, as her expressions went. "I... I understand, if you feel like this is your problem. Your fault, even. It _isn't,_ but... well, I can see why you're invested. I don't _want_ to take it out of your hands. I just want to help."

Blake sighed. "Fine. _Fine,_ just... be careful."

"Practice what you preach, Belladonna."


	17. Getting to Know You [2]

"There's, um... there's something important I need to tell you. Something I've wanted to say for a long time, you know, only it never seemed like the right _moment."_

Jaune paused, rubbing at the back of his neck and blushing.

"I know we've had our differences. And, if I'm being really honest I don't like you very much—"

"You should probably cut that part out," Ruby suggested.

"Fair point. Anyways, what I'm _trying_ to say is—"

"Will you marry me?"

 _"Yang,_ stop it!" Ruby gave her a shove. "Go bother Nora or something!"

"Not my fault he's practicing his big speech in the hallway!" Yang called out, tossing a wink over her shoulder as she went. Jaune groaned.

"It's alright," Pyrrha assured him. "You can keep going if you like."

He cleared his throat and straightened up. "What I'm trying to say is that we should... talk. And... do homework? Gah, no! That's terrible!"

"Breathe, Jaune."

"Right. Cardin—I want to... um... cooperate. Peacefully."

"I do!" Ruby said. He shot her a wounded look. "Sorry. I'm taking it seriously, honest!" Her mouth was twitching at the corners. It was obvious she was trying very hard not to laugh.

"No, I get it." He sighed. "It's ridiculous."

"What, no! I mean, maybe a little bit but that's just because this whole thing is ridiculous! Like, why do you have to work with him at all?"

"Goodwitch can't change what partner I have without forcing him on someone else." Jaune ran a hand through his hair. "And, I mean... lets be honest, would you feel more betrayed if I got you stuck with Cardin or actually literally stabbed you in the back?"

"...The first one," Ruby admitted.

Pyrrha frowned. "That's still not fair to you. They could at least help you deal with him."

"I might ask Goodwitch for the authority to give him detentions or something," Jaune mused. "That way he might listen to me. Sometimes. Maybe."

"Can she do that?" Ruby asked, cocking her head to one side. "Um, not that I'd want or need that or anything, I'm just surprised."

Jaune shrugged. "Maybe? I'll take pretty much any help anyone can give me, at this point."

"I hope you can work something out," Pyrrha said. Ruby nodded agreement.

"Well, I'm off to Ermine's dorm," Jaune told them, "So... wish me luck and maybe come rescue me if I'm not back in half an hour?"

Ruby gave him a surprisingly crisp salute. "Will do!"

It was easier to knock on ERMN's door than Professor Goodwitch's, but not by much. He did his best to straighten his posture and square his shoulders, to give the illusion of a confident Huntsman who wasn't starting to feel slightly nauseous. Then he tapped on the door.

The boy who opened it was only vaguely familiar. He was taller than Jaune, broad-shouldered, with a thick neck and close-cropped auburn hair. His eyes scanned up and down, and then his mouth curled into a smirk. "You must be another first-year."

"I need to talk to Cardin, please." Best to be polite. He'd been joking about asking Pyrrha and Ruby to rescue him, but it was a lot less funny now that he was staring a third-year in the face.

"Cardin!" The boy turned and called into the dorm. "Your partner's here."

Cardin strolled into the middle of the room, his arms folded over his chest. He was smirking, too, but Jaune found that it was suddenly a lot less intimidating than it used to be. "Well, well, well. Couldn't get enough of me, huh?"

Over Cardin's head, Jaune spotted one of the other third-year boys leaning casually on the wall near the window. His spiky blond hair was so pale he might have thought it was white if he hadn't met Weiss already. The boy was laughing silently, his shoulders shaking. Cardin hadn't noticed.

"Uh," Jaune managed. This was the most interaction he'd ever had with ERMN, and he was pretty sure that he wanted _way less_ from now on. "I'm Jaune. Jaune Arc. Short, sweet—uh, short and sweet." He tried to grin.

"Leonardo," the blond boy said lazily. "My friends call me Leo. Tell me, that _thing_ on your hip. Is that a sword or a letter opener? I can't tell."

"It's a sword." Jaune kept up his miserable attempt at a smile. He gave Cardin a look. "Can we talk outside, Cardin?"

"I'd love to, but I just don't have the time." Cardin spread his hands. "I mean, I have more important things to do and more important people to talk to." Leonardo was laughing again, bending over at the waist and pressing a hand over his mouth to keep himself quiet.

"...Right." Jaune shoved his hand into his pocket and curled it into a fist. "Sure you do. But I'm also your team leader—"

 _"He's_ the team leader?" The boy who'd opened the door raised an eyebrow. "Really? I thought for sure it was _you,_ Cardin." Cardin smirked and puffed out his chest. The boy's eyes glittered with suppressed amusement.

"I don't think I caught your name," Jaune said. His voice came out oddly cold.

"Marten Strobus."

"Great. Nice to meet you. Cardin, come on."

"You're gonna have to make me, Vomit boy."

"Vomit boy?" Leonardo snorted, then started to laugh—out _loud,_ this time.

Marten just grinned. "Sounds like there's a story behind that.

"Airsickness," Jaune replied casually. "No big deal." He shot one last frustrated glare at Cardin.

"He threw up on a girl's shoes," Cardin said, still smirking. Jaune wasn't sure how he even knew about that. Though, in retrospect Yang hadn't been very subtle about noticing back on the ship to Beacon.

"Yep." Jaune kept grinning. His face hurt. "That's me. But she didn't murder me, so I'm calling it a win." He backed up a step. "Just so you know, Cardin, we're going to do some training soon. Gotta make sure that last win wasn't a fluke, you know?"

"Shoo, little firstie," Leo flicked his hand. Jaune sighed and retreated.

"Okay," he told the empty hallway. "That was not good for my pride." No big deal, though. Water off a duck's back. He could do that. Yeah.

His hand tightened protectively around the hilt of Croacea Mors. _Letter opener? Really?_

The important thing was that ERMN was worse than he thought they were. And he thought he might understand Cardin just a little better. With that in mind... he needed a chance to wear the guy down. No classes, no distractions. Plus, if he played his cards right he might be able to follow Weiss' advice, too.

With that in mind, he returned to Professor Goodwitch's office. After the debacle of a few minutes ago, he found it was the easiest thing in the world to reach out and rap on the door. She opened it, then... smiled. Jaune did a double-take at the sight.

"Um, hi," he said, rather lamely.

"Hello, Mr. Arc. I'm glad to see your team coming together."

"Thanks." Jaune winced. "I mean, it's only the three of us right now..."

"There is always room for improvement, of course, but you needn't fear dissolution."

"Oh." He grinned, and this time it was genuine. "That's great!"

"Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Not exactly." He glanced over his shoulder. "I actually just came from, um, talking to Cardin."

She gave him a searching look. "And how did that go?"

"I think I have an idea for how to get him to cooperate better." Jaune took a deep breath. "I want to take an extra mission for my team."

"Oh?" Goodwitch raised an eyebrow.

"It's almost impossible to get through to Cardin when we're here, and he's, um... around Ermine. But I was thinking, if we had some kind of mission I could have a few days alone with him to figure all that out. Maybe partners only at first, because I don't think it would help having him fighting with the other two all the time. Then we could meet up and do something as a team." Jaune stopped, feeling a little out of breath.

Goodwitch hummed in approval. "Very good, Mr. Arc. I'd be happy to set that up for you."

"Wait, really?"

For a second, he almost thought she might laugh. "I don't know precisely what happened to bring your other two teammates together—apart from the fact that it involved an incident by the docks," she said. "I _do_ know that the three of you have managed something that is nothing short of miraculous, perhaps even _more_ miraculous than you know, Mr. Arc. If you think you can do even better, I won't stand in your way."

Jaune sagged in relief. "Thank you!"

"I will of course contact the headmaster first, but I doubt he'll object. Once that's done, you'll need to find three suitable targets—one for yourself and Mr. Winchester, one for Miss Schnee and Miss Belladonna, and one for all four of you. I can look over your selections to ensure they aren't too dangerous for you. For each mission, you will also be assigned a Huntsman or Huntress to accompany you."

"What about classes?"

"Again, I'll have to check with Ozpin, as well as your Professors. I suspect they'll be willing to help the four of you make up whatever work you might miss."

"Okay." Jaune was having a little trouble wrapping his head around that. "That's... that's good!"

"After all that is confirmed, you can speak with your teammates. If they are willing to accept the missions you select, and if there are no objections from Ozpin, I believe you'll be on your way."

"I will!" He tried not to bounce up and down. "Thank you so much!"

"It's my job, Mr. Arc. Now go, do your research and inform your teammates."

"Yes, ma'am!"

He charged out of the room, jumped into the air, and let out a whoop. This was _it!_ Well, maybe. Assuming Weiss and Blake were fine with it, and that he could get Cardin to join, _and_ that Ozpin didn't mind. But this was _probably_ it!

* * *

Beacon's dorm rooms were big enough. Maybe it hadn't felt like that at first, especially considering how much room was taken up by the beds, but all in all they had more than enough space for four people.

Eight was pushing it a little.

They were paired up two to a bed, with Yang herself sharing Pyrrha's mattress with Russel. There was space, technically, but if they all tried to stand up at once she was pretty sure that elbows would be an issue.

"Okay!" Ruby clapped her hands together. "Friends! Sisters!"

"Russel," Yang added. He stuck his tongue out at her. Across from them, she caught Dove turning his head to hide a smirk.

"We now commence... Operation Citizen's Arrest!"

"Now with way more than twice the mayhem!" Nora added.

"Right." Ruby cleared her throat and straightened her back. "So... we should probably start with what we know."

"Torchwick has a henchwoman," Pyrrha said. "And from what we saw last week, she's skilled."

Ren nodded agreement. "She's an agility fighter, and her weapon is a parasol with a hidden blade."

"You mentioned something about his semblance, too," Yang added.

"We think it might be some kind of mind control. He was giving us orders during the fight."

"Was he?" Pyrrha frowned. Ren stared at her.

"He told you to move out of the way, while you were protecting Ruby."

Pyrrha shook her head. "I don't remember that."

"That's... terrifying," Sky said.

"It doesn't make sense, either." Ruby glanced at Ren. "If he was doing that, why wouldn't he just tell us to stop fighting him?"

"A limitation?" Ren shrugged. "Or maybe I'm wrong. It's hard to be sure with so little to go on.

"For now," Dove said, "I think we should concentrate on finding him. We can worry about how to fight him later."

There were nods around the room.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"He's breaking his normal pattern." Sky flushed when everyone looked at him. "Um... he normally does his robberies in clusters, with nothing for a few weeks and then several in one or two days. That way he can steal a lot in a short span of time and then lie low while the heat dies down. This has been a bit more spread out, with two in the span of about a month."

"Three," Ruby corrected him. "I mean, I _think_ so. Apparently Blake and Weiss ran into him in Vale—I don't know why they were there or really anything about what's going on with... all of _that,_ but they did say it was him."

"Maybe we could ask them where they were, what he said... things like that."

"Wait." Pyrrha frowned. "Blake and Weiss were missing over the weekend, and our... run-in with Torchwick was on Friday. That's two robberies in only a few _days."_

"It's still not as much as quickly as his usual MO—" Sky began, but Dove interrupted him. He was holding his scroll, with one finger in the air.

"I just checked, and there were another two on Wednesday and three on Thursday. There haven't been any reported for today, but I suspect it's too early for that just now."

"That's a lot like what he normally does," Ruby said. "Just... sooner."

Yang's brow furrowed at that. "Why, though? I mean, you mentioned what he did earlier was supposed to keep him from getting caught. Now he's changing it?"

"He's speeding up," Pyrrha agreed. "This can't just be about money, then."

"Nowhere to spend it behind bars," said Russel.

Ruby leaned forward, frowning. "That's probably bad."

"What do we do, then?" Yang asked.

Her little sister grinned, her face lighting up. "Okay, team! We're gonna need some people to look into the recent robberies, try to find a pattern like we did last time."

"I can do that," Dove said. Sky and Ren both raised their hands.

"And... um, do we have any leads to start with?"

"I could talk to someone," Yang offered.

"Right! So me and you and maybe someone else can go do that—" _Crap._

"Yeah!" Nora cheered.

"Okay, me you and Nora."

"Um..."

"What?"

Yang winced. "Well... they um, might not let you in."

"Huh? Why?" Ruby looked a little hurt.

"You're not really, uh... old enough to drink."

"Yang, no." Dove glared at her. "We are not sending you to a bar. We are _really_ not sending Nora to a bar."

"It's _fine,"_ she insisted. "He's mostly an information broker, and I know him. It's just that he works out of his club, so age is a factor."

"You're not old enough to drink _either,_ Yang!"

At that, she managed a weak grin. "Well, it's really more about plausible deniability—"

"I'm going to have to second that no," Ren said.

Nora gasped. "Aw, but Ren!"

"I could go with them." Pyrrha winced when everyone turned to look at her. "That is, if the problem is not sending Yang and Nora alone..."

"He gives good tips," Yang added. "And I've gone there on my own before, so with three of us the danger would be pretty much nil."

Dove sighed. "Fine. Pyrrha? Just... don't let either of them drink."

"Hey!" Yang and Nora both chorused in unison.

"I wasn't going to! I know when not to do stuff like that!"

"That was one time, Ren!"

"Yes, because _I never let you do it again."_

"I won't," Pyrrha promised. From the look on her face, Yang guessed she was already starting to regret volunteering.

"Right..." Ruby fiddled with her cloak. "So that's... hopefully going to be fine. And it just leaves Russel and me with nothing to do."

"Oh!" Russel jerked upright. "Wait, I think I have a thing. A contact, I mean."

"Great!"

"What contact?" Yang raised an eyebrow at him. He paled.

"Uh..."

_"Russ."_

"It isn't any more dangerous than yours, I'm pretty sure," he said quickly. "And considering he's an information broker running a nightclub, if anything it might be _less_ sketchy." Yang scowled at him, but... well, she couldn't actually think of an argument against it that wouldn't also apply to going to Junior's.

"Good enough, I guess," Ruby decided. "Should we be worried that two out of the eight of us just had criminal contacts lying around?"

"Probably," said Dove, "but then again, I'm mostly just glad it's only _half_ of my team and not three quarters."

"I could have shady underworld people too, you don't know!" Nora insisted.

Ren shrugged. _"I'd_ know."

"Ugh, fine."

"So, do we all know what we're doing?" Ruby asked. There were nods around the room. "Cool. I guess... we go do it?"

"Already?" Russel blinked a few times. "Wow, I take back all that stuff I thought about Raspberry being boring."

"Hey! And anyway, it's not like there's going to be a better time. Curfew isn't until eight, and it's only four."

"Don't stay out past seven," Dove advised them. "That gives you plenty of time to come back."

Russel rolled his eyes. "Yes, _mom."_

"Do you _want_ to try to explain what we're doing out in Vale after hours? To _Goodwitch?"_

"...No, mom."

Dove put his face in his hands. "Please stop talking."

* * *

"Yang, are you _sure_ about this?" Pyrrha asked, for the third time.

"Yep!" She spread her hands out and did a little twirl. "It's totally fine."

Pyrrha glanced around. In a nearby alley, a thin, sallow-looking man was cleaning his fingernails with a knife. An old woman walked up to him and brandished an old frying pan, and after a brief scuffle he disappeared into the shadows. Every now and then, someone would turn around and look at the three of them, and something in their eyes would be _hungry._

"It doesn't look fine," she pointed out.

"It's _fine."_ Nora slung an arm across her shoulders. "No one's gonna mess with _us."_

Pyrrha was starting to understand why BRYN seemed to attract so much trouble. "But, are you _sure—_ "

"Yes, Pyrrha." Yang grinned at her, only slightly exasperated. "I'm sure that we're okay, I'm sure that this is where the club is, and I'm sure that talking to Junior is a good idea."

"That isn't very reassuring."

"Too bad," Nora said, pointing at a nearby door. "'Cause something tells me that's it!"

There was a poster of a skull taking up nearly two thirds of the door, and a smattering of graffiti all along the wall of the worn brick building. Pyrrha started silently apologizing to Dove and Ren.

"Close." Yang gently took Nora's wrist and moved it so that her index finger was pointing to a much nicer-looking building across the street.

"Aw."

"Tell you what, later we can—"

"Vetoed," Pyrrha said quickly.

"But Pyrrha!" Nora whined.

"The others agreed to this on the condition that we won't do anything unnecessarily dangerous while we're out here. That would be unnecessarily dangerous."

Yang shrugged. "Fair enough."

Pyrrha blinked in mild surprise. "You aren't going to... um..."

"Go anyway while you aren't looking?"

"Yes, that."

"Nah." Yang smiled again. "You're my little sister's partner, remember? I can't really complain about you being sensible and cautious. Or I could, but it'd be pretty dumb."

"Guess that means Brine gets to hog all the adventures," Nora said cheerfully.

Pyrrha felt like she should probably respond to that, somehow—she could almost _hear_ Dove cringing at the idea—but by then they were already at the door. That was when a bouncer walked out the door, and she noticed two things.

The first was that he was staring at Yang like she'd just burned his house down in front of him.

The second was that she recognized his uniform.

"You!" he shouted, pointing at Yang. She waved. He drew a gun.

"Awesome!" Nora reached behind her back and grinned. "I have one of those, too!" She drew her weapon, already shifting it into its long-ranged form. "Mine's bigger."

"Hey, now." Yang laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's fine, right? Junior's guy is just being friendly."

The man was wearing mirrored lenses, but Pyrrha could see his chin tilt and guessed that he was looking at Nora's grenade launcher. "...Right," he grumbled. "Friendly."

"I want to see Junior," Yang told him.

He folded his arms. "The boss doesn't want you here. Just leave, and there won't be any..."

Yang coughed pointedly. Nora was still smiling.

"...I'll go in and ask him. Wait here."

The moment he was gone, Pyrrha grabbed Yang by the arm. "Yang—"

"I know, I know," she groaned. "Look, Junior _does_ know a lot, and he and I get along better than you might think just by looking—"

"Not that!" She glanced warily at the door, then hissed, "They're the ones that were with Torchwick!"

_"What?!"_

"The thugs helping him carry the dust. They were wearing the same outfits."

Yang's eyes went red. "Well, isn't that _interesting."_

"Don't do anything rash," Pyrrha whispered. "At least not yet."

"Yeah, yeah."

The bouncer returned, scowling. "He says to come in."

"Aw, thanks!" Yang gave him a little pat as she passed him. He glared at her. Nora stuck her tongue out at him. Pyrrha just gave him a wary once-over, wondering if he'd been one of the people she'd seen with Torchwick a week ago. The thought gave her pause.

"Yang," she whispered. Then, at normal speaking volume, "Yang." She was drowned out completely by the music.

 _"Yang!"_ she half-shouted. The girl turned and looked at her. "Is it supposed to be this loud?!"

Yang looked at her like she was crazy. "It's a club!"

Pyrrha shot a wary glance behind them, then got as close as she could to Yang's ear and said, very loudly, "What if they recognize me?"

"Play it cool. They _probably_ won't hold a grudge."

"Probably?"

"Yeah!"

Nora spotted the bar at about that point, and Pyrrha and Yang had to struggle to keep up with her. Despite the fact that it was still early, the place was crowded—or maybe it just felt that way to her. She'd never liked parties very much, and for her they'd always been formal and structured, more public appearances than anything else. This was... not. It was dark, but strobe lights flashed in the background and made the room seem like it was moving in stop-motion. The music was omnipresent, thick in her ears and vibrating in her chest.

"Let's do this quickly," she suggested. Neither of the other two seemed to have heard her. Yang had grabbed Nora by the hand and was keeping her from wandering off and enjoying the club, but to do that she'd gotten ahead and Pyrrha had to duck between two dancers to keep her in sight. The bar felt almost like a safe haven. It was farther from the speakers, quieter. Pyrrha rested her forearms on it, taking deep steadying breaths.

"I thought I told you not to come back."

She glanced up, then winced when she realized that the bartender was looking right at Yang. He was big, both tall and broad and with the air of someone who knew how to fight. Pyrrha could already feel a headache coming on. The lights certainly didn't help.

Yang just spread her hands. "Oh, hey Junior! What're you doing behind the bar?" He gave her a very unfriendly look.

"I've been short-staffed lately, for _some_ reason. Now, what are you doing here?"

"What can I say, Junior? I like the atmosphere."

"Get to the point or get out, Blondie."

"Sorry, what was that?" Pyrrha put a hand on Miló where it rested at the small of her back. Yang was smiling, but not the kind of smile that _stopped_ fights.

To her shock (and horror), Junior winced and muttered, "Sir," under his breath.

"Wow." Nora was staring at her in open awe. "What did you _do?"_

Yang waved her hand. "Nothing major."

"You destroyed the club."

"For the record, you were the one who started using explosives."

 _"For the record,_ we only just finished repairs. So, I'll say it again—get to the point, or _get out."_

"Two questions," Yang said cheerfully. "Wait, three! Can I get a—"

"No!" Pyrrha and Junior both said, at exactly the same time.

"I was going to say _water."_

Junior scowled at her. "Fine."

"Second question! What do you know about Roman Torchwick?" Pyrrha felt herself tense up.

"Can't help you," Junior replied, nonchalant.

Yang rolled her eyes. "Tell you what, how about you get my drink while you're thinking?"

He muttered something under his breath, but turned away. Yang leaned in and whispered, "We're not getting anything, if these are the guys you saw."

Pyrrha frowned. "Why mention him, then?"

"Well... I might have a plan."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Pyrrha asked, more to delay the inevitable than because there was any doubt.

"Okay, listen... Nora and I are going to distract Junior." _There goes the building._ "While we're doing that, you sneak around back and see if you can find anything."

"Are you sure—"

"Here." Junior slammed a glass of water down on the bar just a bit harder than necessary. "Now, I _told_ you that I don't know anything about Torchwick."

"Fine, fine." Yang smiled again. "Last question."

"What?"

"Did you know he attacked my little sister?"

Pyrrha watched as realization dawned across the man's face. "Hey," he started, backing away from her. "Listen, that had nothing to do with—"

"Guess you'll have to do some more remodeling!"

Before he could respond to that, Pyrrha slipped away from the bar and looked around. There was an _employees only_ door to her left. She waited until all eyes were on Yang and Nora—which didn't take long—then slipped through.

The hallway she entered was brightly lit, and blissfully quiet compared to the rest of the club. She jogged a few paces down it, then twisted the knob on the first door she found. It opened, and inside she found a small office with papers strewn haphazardly over every surface. None of them had 'Clue' written on them in bold capital letters, so it was hard to tell where to start.

Outside, there was a loud _bang_ and the distant music came to a screeching halt. Pyrrha decided that she should probably hurry. Careful not to disturb anything more than absolutely necessary, she rummaged through a few drawers and found nothing but more papers. Then, she came upon one that had been locked. Looking nervously around, she tried to probe the tumblers with her semblance. They shifted, but didn't align properly.

"Come on," she whispered. Her fingers twisted, and there was a nasty squeal of metal on metal. The drawer still didn't budge. Perhaps the worst thing about it was that she was fairly sure she could have done it with a little more practice.

 _Later._ She stood up and surveyed the room, her eyes finally landing on a small shredder in the corner. There was a small stack of papers next to it. Pyrrha rifled through them. There was a magazine turned out to be... _not_ what she was looking for. A packet of what looked like budget reports or bank statements. Then, near the bottom, there was something that struck her as odd.

It was a receipt for a metered parking lot. Utterly boring and forgettable, containing no useful information whatsoever—so _why_ was it being shredded? Why not just throw it out? Pyrrha folded it in two and stuffed it in one of the pouches on her belt, then put the rest of the papers back where she had found them. Someone outside shouted. She left the office as quickly and as quietly as she could, then waited near the door to the rest of the bar. Just as she heard an explosion go off, she pushed it open and slipped back into the club.

Nora was standing on top of a precariously stacked heap of tables, her hammer raised above her head and her eyes alight with a mad intensity.

 _"I am the table queen!"_ she roared. _"All tremble before me!"_

Pyrrha rushed over to where Yang was manhandling one of the bouncers, hoping no one would notice where she'd just come from. She doubted it, really—she herself was having a hard time looking at anything besides Nora, and she was... moderately used to her.

Yang caught sight of Pyrrha as she approached and grinned. "That's _it,_ Junior!" she called out, pointing at the bar where he was crouching. "Get out here and fight me!"

He stood up, brandishing something like a gun or— _oh._

"Might wanna duck," Yang suggested. Pyrrha dove under a table just as the _rocket_ went off, toppling Nora's throne and demolishing one of the stairways leading up to the dance floor.

"See, this is why your club keeps getting destroyed!" Yang shouted. "You shouldn't use explosives indoors!"

"Tell that to your friend!"

Nora giggled and shot a pink canister towards the bar.

Another rocket headed their way, and Pyrrha had to duck to avoid it. It smashed into a barstool only a few feet away from Yang and blasted her off her feet with a cry of pain.

"Yang!"

Pyrrha rushed over and knelt next to her. Yang groaned, clutching her shoulder—then tipped a wink.

"Enough!" Pyrrha snapped. "You're hurt, we need to go!" She hauled her friend up by her 'good' arm, then charged for the door. A few of the bouncers got in her way, holding up their pistols.

Pyrrha cocked her head. "You know, it's really not a good idea to hold them like—"

Three of them fired, and she knocked the shots aside with Akoúo. "Nora!"

"Coming, Pyrrha!"

After a final grenade—and an indignant shout from Junior—the three of them rushed out of the bar and into the street. Nora grabbed Pyrrha's elbow and led her down an alley, only to slow to a walk on the other side. The second they were through, she peered over at Yang.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?"

Yang let go of Pyrrha and laughed, throwing her arms wide. "Never better! That was some A-plus acting there, Pyr!"

"...Pyr?"

"It's a—you know what, never mind. Did you find anything?"

"A receipt for a parking meter."

Nora and Yang both stared at her, horrorstruck. "It was put aside to be shredded," Pyrrha explained hurriedly. "But why bother unless there's something more to it?"

Yang nodded slowly. "I can see that."

"Well, that and it was the only suspicious thing I could find that wasn't locked up."

"Oh, man!" Yang smacked herself on the forehead. "I forgot that might be an issue." She grinned. "I've got to get Russ to teach me how to pick locks."

Pyrrha considered maybe asking about that, but on the other hand... she didn't really want to know. "What exactly happened with that club?" she asked instead.

Yang winced. "I, uh... well, I had a question for him and things got a bit out of hand."

"How'd you get him to call you sir?" Nora clapped her hands together. "That was _awesome!"_

"Um... it's a long story." Yang looked even more uncomfortable now. She sighed. "I feel bad about the whole thing, really. I lost my temper and overreacted. A lot."

Pyrrha stared at her. "And doing it _again...?"_

Yang looked up, then shrugged. "Well, this time he had his goons shoot at my little sister, so..."

"Point taken," Pyrrha said, smiling. Then she paused. Frowned. "Wait a moment... what time is it?"

"Seven fifty!" Nora reported cheerfully. All three of them froze.

"Run!" Yang yelped. "Go, go, go!"

Generally speaking, the trip from Vale to Beacon took forty-five mintues. They made it in a little over twenty by sprinting the whole way to the ferry, jumping off before it had quite touched down again—Nora's idea, naturally—and then taking what Yang called the 'express route' to their dorm hallway through a second-floor window. Pyrrha arrived in RSPR's room five minutes after eight, panting for breath.

"Are you okay?!" Ruby demanded the second she got through the door.

"Your sister," Pyrrha managed, "is... interesting."


	18. Getting to Know You [3]

_Slam._

A stack of books nearly as tall as she was hit the table in front of Weiss. The poor bit of furniture groaned in protest, and a plume of dust rose into the air. She stared at them, then up at the person who'd just dropped them practically on top of her.

"Was that really necessary?"

Blake sat across from her and dragged the top book off the stack. "It's everything I could find that might help."

The book nearest her eye-level was called _The Rise and Fall of the White Fang: an examination of the sociopolitical factors that lead to the creation of Remnant's most infamous terrorist organization._ She groaned. "This is _history,_ Blake. I'm not saying it isn't good to know, but it certainly isn't going to tell us anything about what the White Fang is doing _now."_

"We haven't looked yet," Blake snapped. "And besides, we've already read through all the information we could get from the CCT."

Weiss frowned. "Maybe."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well..." she hesitated. "I had been wondering if I might be able to find some more information."

"Through your family, you mean."

Blake's expression was carefully neutral, but her tone was not friendly. "Yes," Weiss replied. "Records are kept of how much Dust was stolen, and when."

"I don't like it, but... it would be useful."

Weiss bit her lip. "I'm not sure it's a good idea, though. Not right now. My father is paying too much attention to what I'm doing."

"Wha—you _told him?!"_

Weiss stared at her like she'd just suggested setting themselves on fire. "Of _course_ not! It's leftover from the first few weeks, when our team was... well. The team's grades were abysmal, and mine weren't up to the usual standard either. He's watching to make sure I don't slip again. That means he might notice if I use company connections."

"What would he do, if he noticed?" Blake asked.

"He'd demand to know why I needed that information. Then, once I told him _that,_ he'd wonder why I think I'm more qualified to handle it than the police, the Atlesian military, and whoever he's hired to investigate."

"Would he mind?"

"Mind?"

"That you were looking." Blake's thumb ran along the page she'd been reading. "Would he leave you alone once you told him what it was?"

"I highly doubt it. Especially since I can't explain why I suddenly decided to do this instead of focusing on my studies without him dragging me back to Atlas."

Blake looked startled. "He'd go that far?"

"Don't you hate him?" Weiss asked, raising her eyebrows incredulously.

"Well, _yes,_ but I'd expect him to try and get _me_ removed from Beacon, not you."

Weiss scowled. "Honestly? He'd probably do both. Any school that would allow—" she glanced around. "Well, you know. He wouldn't think it was safe for me to stay here."

"He _does_ know that Ozpin's idea of an initiation is throwing us off a cliff, right?"

"I dearly hope not."

"What about... well, last week at the docks?"

"He read the police report." The words came out oddly flat. "I had to convince him it was an accident, and that we were only in Vale that late to find materials for a school project."

"Did he believe you?"

"No."

Blake tensed. "Wait, does that mean—"

"I'm not leaving. It's complicated, but I'm fairly sure that he thinks we were doing something _questionable_ but not illegal or dangerous. Just... something discreet."

It took Blake a moment to get it. "Hang on, he thinks—"

"Probably. It's either that, or he's waiting until he has some evidence to spring on me."

The look on Blake's face was almost good enough to make Weiss feel better about the whole thing. "But... he doesn't mind _that?"_

"He minds." Weiss rolled her eyes. "He just doesn't mind enough to do anything extreme as long as I don't make it too obvious."

Blake rubbed at her temple. "You're right, that _is_ complicated, and I'm not sure I wanted to know any of it."

"You _did_ ask."

"I suppose that means no company resources, then?"

"At least until he stops watching me like a hawk."

"Then we don't have any better options." Blake tapped the stack of books. "Maybe tomorrow we can go out and do some scouting, but it's hard to get anything productive done when we have to spend all day in class."

"Speaking of which." Weiss gave her a look. "Your grades are slipping."

"Seriously?" Blake glared at her. "You _of all people_ should know that this is more important than grades."

"Were you not listening to me?" Weiss leaned forward over the table, clenching both hands into fists. "My being able to stay here depends on _excelling._ That includes team scores, and I've burned up any leeway I might have had."

Blake opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. She slumped. "That's going to make this harder."

"Quite."

She might have said more, but at that moment she heard footsteps coming from the other side of the bookshelf they were sitting behind. Jaune came around the corner a moment later, then froze when he saw them.

"Um, what's going on?"

Weiss realized she was still halfway across the table, her palms flat on its surface and her elbows locked. She sat back down. "Um..."

He looked frantically between her and Blake.

"Nothing's wrong," Blake assured him. "We were just talking. Everything's fine."

"Wow." Jaune blinked a few times. "I think that sentence is even more terrifying coming from you than Nora."

Blake made an indignant noise, but he waved his hands in a shushing gesture. "Just hold on a second, I have to talk to you guys about something. I went to Goodwitch and asked for an extra mission."

"You _what?"_ Weiss burst out. "We never even discussed it!"

"You can veto it if you want," he said hurriedly, "but _please_ hear me out first!"

"...Fine."

"For one thing, it's extra credit. Port, Oobleck, and Goodwitch all agreed to bump our grades up by a point or two if we complete it successfully."

Blake looked distinctly unimpressed. Weiss coughed pointedly at her, and she scowled.

"It's _mostly_ to try and get through to Cardin. I think I can do it I have enough time alone with him. That's why we're going out in partner pairs first, so that I can deal with him and you two can get some more practice working together. After that, all four of us will have another objective."

"Jaune." Weiss rubbed the bridge of her nose. "At some point, you're going to have to accept that Cardin just isn't willing to work with us."

"I can do it!" he insisted.

She and Blake exchanged a look.

"Hey! Stop that! I'm serious!" Jaune folded his arms. "And you're going to owe me... I don't know, something really cool if I actually manage this!"

"Look, Jaune." Blake was looking anywhere but at their leader. "I don't think I can do this. We've got so much to do for classes, and last week with my arm—"

"That's handled! I talked to Goodwitch and she talked to Port and Oobleck. They're going to give us make-up work when we get back to catch us up, but they promised we'll have enough time to get through it. They want to help, and this is our chance to be more than... than the team that's always screwing up."

Weiss sighed. "Where is it?" she asked, mostly to buy time to come up with a better reason to stay. Jaune placed his scroll flat on the table and pulled up a map.

"All three objectives are in the southeast. The one you two are handling is to the south, over there. Cardin and I are going here, a bit to the west, and then the one we have together is near the Emerald forest, by the river." Blake did a double-take when Jaune tapped the map. "Apparently there's a big Grimm in the woods near this one village that's been causing trouble."

"A big Grimm," Weiss said flatly.

"They, uh, aren't totally sure what it is."

"That sounds like a good way to get ourselves killed," she pointed out.

"We're all going to have a professional Huntsman or Huntress to shadow," Jaune assured them, "and Ozpin said we can back out and call for backup at any time if we think we're in too much danger. It's basically the same thing that our whole class will be doing next semester."

"So we, what, find the big Grimm and kill it?" Weiss was unimpressed. "What are the partner missions, then?"

"Cardin and me are doing pretty much the same thing, but with Beowolves. I figured we should start off easy because, well... I don't think me and Cardin are going to work together that well, and neither of us are that... uh..."

Weiss took pity on him and interrupted. "What about our mission, then?"

"Ah!" He grinned. "That one's actually pretty cool. You get to explore an old castle!"

"I think Weiss has already done that."

"Hey!"

"Also, there are Grimm in the castle. Mostly Creeps, according to the posting."

Blake frowned. "I'm not sure if we should be taking Cardin to hunt the mystery Grimm."

"Oh. Um, I mean... the whole point is that we learn to work together, so we have to do a mission with him—"

"I just meant, why not have the team mission be the one in the castle? Weiss and I can handle one big Grimm, and this way we won't be in too much trouble if it turns out we can't work with Cardin."

Jaune scrunched up his brow. "I guess? But it seems like it would be safer to bring four people on the toughest mission."

Blake chewed her lip. "Well, it's..." Weiss stared at her. It looked like she was searching for an argument. She had no idea _why,_ but that was a question she could answer later.

"You can just say that Cardin counts as a negative teammate, Blake. I _do_ remember him hitting me over the head in the middle of a fight."

"I'm not so sure that was an accident, either," Blake said, scowling.

Jaune made a face like he'd just bitten into a lemon. "Yeah... you kind of have a point. Are you sure you'll be okay with the other mission, though? I can just find an easier one to replace the mystery Grimm."

Blake smiled. "We'll be fine. We've been working together much better recently."

Jaune nodded. "Cool. I'm guessing that means you guys are in?"

Weiss hesitated, glancing over at Blake.

"We'll do it," she said. Then she glanced towards Weiss and caught her raised eyebrow. "Probably. Give us a few minutes?"

Jaune glanced from one to the other, then shrugged. "I guess? Just... let me know when you're done." With that, he wandered back amongst the stacks.

"What are you doing?" Weiss hissed under her breath.

"When Jaune was showing us the map, I realized something!" Blake gestured at the massive heap of books that was still taking up an abominable amount of table space. "We're at a dead-end, right?"

"I was _just_ trying to tell you that, Blake."

"But we don't have to be." She leaned in closer, whispering, "There's a base in the southeast, just at the border of the Emerald Forest. It's only about half a day's walk from that village!"

Weiss sat up straighter. "Are you sure it's still there?"

"Not completely, but it was still in operation when I left."

"Wouldn't they move it?"

Blake shook her head, her tired features drawing up into the faintest shadow of a smile. "They can't move _everything_ I know about."

"Then... you want to investigate it during the mission."

A nod.

"What about the Hunter shadowing us?"

"We ditch them. Or we sneak out, or—I don't know. I'm sure between the two of us we can manage something."

"I want to point out how terribly unsafe that is," Weiss said, "but I'm not sure it would do any good."

"No." Blake rose from the table. "What they're doing with Torchwick, what they've been doing for years... it's spitting in the face of the peace I fought for, _bled_ for. I'm not willing to let that stand."

Weiss sighed. "Well, now that you've said _that,_ I suppose we have to go."

"You don't." Blake gave her a pleading look. "This isn't just _dangerous,_ Weiss—"

"Blake, no. For one thing, you can't just give a speech like that and then order me to sit around doing crossword puzzles all day. For another, it's a partner mission. If you go, then I go."

"...Fine."

"Good." Weiss smiled. "In that case, I suppose we should start packing."

* * *

"Sky."

No response.

Ren reached out and nudged his partner's shoulder. The boy jumped, whirled around, then went a brilliant shade of scarlet. "Sorry!" he blurted. "I was just, uh..."

"Distracted?" Ren raised an eyebrow.

"Uh..." Sky's mouth opened and closed a few times. "Maybe? I, uh... it won't happen again, I swear!"

Ren shifted uncomfortably. "Right."

"Are we—um, do we have a table? That I should go to? Uh, now?"

"Yes."

He lead the way, with his partner hastily grabbing up his scroll and several pages of notes. It had been Dove and Sky's jobs to find anything they could on Roman Torchwick that was publically available. Sure, RSPR had done the same thing not too long ago, but Dove had wanted to make sure they didn't miss anything. That, and there were already files on crimes that had been committed between then and now. Ren had been tasked with collecting everything they already had from last time. He'd also gone to the trouble of printing out a map of vale and spreading it over their table.

"It's like we're in a war room," Sky muttered. Ren didn't comment.

"Is this the library's?" asked Dove.

"No." Ren dropped a few textbooks on the corners to keep it from rolling up. "The librarian let me print one." He opened a box of colored pens—donated to the cause by Pyrrha—and started marking it up.

"Red for the robberies that happened within the last two weeks," Dove suggested. "Make them pop a little more."

There were more red dots than most other colors. They were also significantly more spread out—not in clusters like the others.

"It's like we thought, he's changing up his normal pattern," Sky said, tracing a finger across the map's surface. "He might be hitting bigger targets, too. Wait, let me—" He took the pens and drew squares around some of Ren's dots. "These are robberies where more than a ton of Dust was stolen."

Almost all of the red dots had squares. For the robbery at the docks that Weiss and Blake had been caught up in, Sky had apparently decided that the sheer volume that had been reported missing was worth two squares.

"This is worrying," Ren decided.

"Yeah. I mean, what he was doing _already_ didn't make sense, not unless he was trying to equip an army or something, but this is suggesting he has some kind of deadline and he's worried about not meeting it."

Dove frowned. "Well, what do you do with Dust?"

"Build machines, equip soldiers, sell it on the black market—" Sky began ticking off fingers, "—build weapons, blow things up—" he paled. "That's... okay, let's really hope it's not that one."

Ren frowned. "Taking the Dust may not be the point. It could be he's doing this to make it scarce and artificially increase its value, and _then_ sell it."

"Any of the above would be bad," Dove pointed out. "If he's trying to cause a shortage, that could do just as much damage as a ton of explosives if there's a panic, the Grimm get involved, and Huntsmen don't have the Dust to fight them off."

"I don't think you're getting the scale, here." Sky made a little circle on the map with a pencil around Beacon, including the school and a solid chunk of the surrounding area. _"This_ is the amount of damage a ton of Dust can do, or close to it. He has something like fifty times that much."

Dove stared at it a moment. "Point taken. How do we catch him, then?"

Sky frowned. He squinted at the circle he'd just drawn, then dropped the pencil he was holding. "Guys, I think I've got something!" Scrabbling to pick up the pencil again, he pointed it to one of the red dots. "How far do you think you could walk from here in—" he rifled through his notes on the most recent robberies, "—let's say ten minutes, assuming he also has to take time to store the Dust when he gets there."

Ren looked at the map for a moment, then pointed to an intersection.

Sky tried to draw a circle around that point, then gave up. "Um, does Pyrrha have a—oh, hey, she does!" He grabbed a compass and used it to draw a circle around that robbery, and then the others.

"What exactly are we supposed to be getting from this?" Dove asked, when Sky had circled all seven recent thefts.

"They're supposed to meet somewhere," Sky grumbled. "At least, these two and these three." He pointed to the pair that had taken place on Wednesday, and the three from Thursday. "With how quickly they happened, he had to have gone from one to the other, probably stopping to drop off the Dust in between."

"Why are we talking about walking distance, then?" Ren asked. "Wouldn't he be driving?"

Sky smacked himself on the forehead. "Yeah. He would."

More circles were drawn, this time for their best approximation of a ten minute drive. Some of them connected, but four of them were way off. Two were easily explained away—the event at the docks, and the one that RSPR had been involved in. They hadn't happened at quite the same accelerated pace as the others. But another two were almost across the city from one another.

"That doesn't make sense," Sky grumbled. He jabbed a finger at the general area where three of the circles met. "He can't have robbed an SDC warehouse all the way in the north end, then come down here, and _then_ gone and held up a Dust shop. It's not possible, even if we assume he was driving like a maniac and didn't have to take any time to unload what he'd already stolen before moving on to the next hit."

Dove frowned. He rifled through some of the reports, finally coming up with the one that Blake and Weiss had been involved with. "What about this? He stole almost thirty tons of Dust right off the ship, before it could be moved to a warehouse. But there were guards here, he couldn't possibly have snuck in with all the manpower and trucks he'd need to _move_ all of that."

Ren nodded slowly. "He had to have come from a direction they didn't expect."

"Wait." Sky glanced between the two of them. "Are you saying...?"

"He has an airship." Dove tapped the center point that they had laid out. It was in the industrial district, near the river. "That means he could easily have flown all the way out here. No, that would draw too much attention... but maybe he went somewhere else entirely, and then switched to something a little lower profile."

Ren frowned. "That isn't subtle. Someone would have noticed if he was using aircraft."

"Well, yeah," Sky agreed, "but would they share that with civilians? It's kind of scary."

They sat for a moment, staring at the little map. Sky reached out and used a yellow highlighter to color in the space where the circles overlapped.

"What do we do about this, then?" Dove asked.

Ren traced one of the circles with his finger. "We should tell the others. Then... perhaps we investigate the area?"

Sky sighed. "Great. More poking around in the creepy part of town."

"Don't worry," Ren told him. "You won't have to fight." His voice came out a bit colder than he'd meant it to.

"I want to." Sky wasn't making eye contact.

Ren forced a smile and stood up from the table. He rolled the map into a tight scroll, then started gathering up Pyrrha's markers and pens. Dove scrambled to help, chattering to fill the sudden silence and occasionally shooting nervous glances at the other two. Sky, by contrast, was silent.

Sky wasn't a fighter. That had been obvious from the beginning. Ren scowled. It didn't matter much, anyway—he already _had_ a battle partner. A real partner, one who had already proved that she wouldn't back down from a fight so long as they were together. One he could trust fully and completely. He was blessed to have even a single person in his life like that, so it didn't matter if Beacon hadn't given him another.

It was just a shame. That was all.

* * *

"So, um... where are we going?" Ruby asked.

Russel sighed. "We're going to see an old friend," he explained, for the _third time._ "Just stay quiet for a minute so I can remember where she lives, okay?"

Ruby scowled at him. Russel swore softly under his breath. "Look, Squirt—"

"I'm _not_ a Squirt!" she insisted. "I'm fifteen, not ten! And I want to know who your old friend _is_ and if they're gonna try and kill us!"

That...

That was kind of a fair point, actually.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Her name's Fuchsia, and... her trying to kill us is super unlikely. Her actually being able to help is _also_ kind of unlikely, but it can't hurt to try."

Ruby gave him a _look._

"No, seriously!" he insisted. "It can't hurt to try! She's small time, she and her people wouldn't be able to fight us if they wanted to."

"Okay, but still."

"Yeah, yeah." _Stupid BRYN reputation._ "Anyway, I _think_ this is it." He pointed to a low, square brick building. It was ugly as sin, and spattered with graffiti from street to rooftop. Not the cool, artistic kind, either—the kind that was mostly just swear words scrawled in giant, mostly-illegible letters. It looked familiar, though. Russel knocked on the front door. Little flakes of paint came off on his knuckles.

Ruby stepped forward. "Hey, are you sure this is a good—"

The door opened with a tortured squeal, revealing a teenaged boy in black, with obviously-dyed black hair and a piercing in his left nostril. There was a skull on his shirt. Russel felt offended by him to the very core of his being.

"What's your business here?" the boy drawled.

"I want to see Fuchsia."

Ruby gave Russel another look. _"We_ want to see Fuchsia."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yo!" he shouted into the building. "Some dude here for Fuchsia."

"Russel. Russel Thrush."

"Whatever." Russel dearly hoped he'd never looked or acted quite like _this_ one. Lots of black wasn't a replacement for actual _style,_ damn it!

The guy led them down a narrow, dimly-lit hallway and into the garage in the back. It was packed with cars, old and new, all in various states of disassembly. Workmen prowled around them with saws and drills and crowbars, picking them apart piece by piece. Ruby made a small, distressed noise at the sight. At least, he _thought_ it was distressed until she sprinted over to one of the disemboweled engines and started talking rapid-fire about the different mechanical bits. Near the back, a figure in a welding mask pushed it back, revealing a head of hot pink hair, brown eyes, and a toothy grin.

"Russel!" Fuchsia called out, throwing her arms wide. She was still holding a blow torch in one of them. "I thought you were dead!"

Russel stared at her. "You... huh?"

"Well, you don't _call,_ you don't _write..."_

"You remember my name?" He was honestly a little bit flattered.

"You're underestimating how gorgeous a car that was," she told him. Then she glanced at Ruby and raised an eyebrow. "Who's this?"

Ruby managed to introduce herself, in between exclamations about a nearby rotating saw. As she looked at it, eyes sparkling, Russel suddenly realized that she and Yang looked a _lot_ more alike than he'd first thought.

"So... is she your girlfriend, or—"

That was, apparently, enough to get Ruby to look up. "What? No!" She scrunched up her face and stuck out her tongue. Maybe a _bit_ more disgust than he thought was warranted, personally, but whatever.

"Look, Fuchsia, that's not what I—"

"Oh!" Fuchsia nodded. "I get it. She's your sister, right?"

"...Still no," he sighed. "And that's _really_ not the point."

"Can I keep her? Seriously, half the idiots I have working here don't even know what that thing's for, and she's holding it right and everything."

Russel whirled around. "Ruby, put it down."

She made a face. "Oh, come _on!_ I know how to use it!"

"Okay, but I don't want to have to explain to Yang why you got a job in the shady part of Vale."

"Job?"

"Ten lien an hour," Fuchsia agreed.

"Stop it." Russel massaged his temple with one hand. Was this what Dove felt like all the time? "We're not here for work."

"Do you have another car for me?" Fuchsia asked.

"...No."

She pouted at him. "Aw, come on. What _are_ you here for, then? Did you miss me that much?"

"I had a question about Roman Torchwick," he explained.

Fuchsia's brow furrowed. "You... what? How would I know about him?"

Ruby was glaring at him. "What exactly does she do, Russel?"

"Uh..."

"Wait a minute!" Ruby pointed at the car behind her. "This is stolen, isn't it?!"

"Um..."

"What—" Fuchsia grabbed him by the vest. "Russel. How did you meet her?"

"She's a classmate at Beacon?"

Fuchsia's eye twitched. "Oh. You made it big. Congrats." The welding torch in her right hand flipped on, and a pale blue flame lanced out from its tip. "Now why the hell did you bring a mini Huntress into my shop?!"

"I thought she wasn't gonna attack us!" Ruby said indignantly. "And, wait, she said you brought her a car! _You stole a car?!"_

Russel looked from Fuchsia, to Ruby, then back. "I did steal a car," he admitted. "But I swear it's not how it sounds—"

"I'm _talking_ to you, Thrush!" Fuchsia snapped.

"Well, actually you're _both_ talking to me, at the same time, and to be totally honest I'm a bit more scared of her..."

"Wait, really?" Ruby perked up. "Thanks!"

The welding torch got a little closer to his head. "Look, Fuchsia, I'm not here to bust you or anything. I _really_ just wanted to ask about Torchwick."

"You are _such_ a jackass." She sighed and put down the blowtorch. "I don't know why you thought I could help with that. I run a chop shop, I don't steal Dust."

"Well, yeah. But..."

"Russel, criminals don't all know each other."

"I know! I just... it was a shot in the dark, okay?"

Fuchsia sighed. "I like you. I really do. But I'm _not_ going to talk to the cops, or... whatever the hell you are, right now."

"But—"

"Russel. Get out of my shop."

He hung his head. "Come on, Ruby."

The boy in black stood near the door, ready to escort them out. He stopped them before they got to the outer door and said, in a hushed voice, "You want info on Torchwick?"

Russel resisted the urge to blurt out, "That _worked?"_

"Uh, yes?" he said instead.

The guy held out a hand, rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

Ruby stared at it. "Huh?"

Russel patted his pocket and winced. "Look, uh, about that..."

"My memory isn't that good."

He glanced over at Ruby. "Um... got any money?"

"What?"

"He wants us to pay him."

"... _Oh."_ She rummaged in her skirt pocket for a moment, then brought out ten lien. "Is this enough?"

The boy started laughing. "You two have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

"Um..." Ruby and Russel glanced at each other.

"I took a job with Torchwick a couple months ago."

"So?" Russel prompted him. "Do you know where he's based, or...?"

"Nope."

"Okay..."

"I _did_ see someone else talking to him, though. Hot chick, kinda scary looking."

"Oh!" Ruby burst out. "Was she really short, pink and brown hair?"

"What? Nah. Tall, dark hair. Red dress."

"That's it?" Russel glared at him.

"Well, yeah. What did you expect, his home address?"

"No?" Ruby tried. The boy laughed again.

"Take it from me, kid. It's hard out here on the streets. You don't get what you want that easy."

"Oh, shut up," Russel groused. "You probably bought those jeans pre-ripped."

The boy left them alone in the street outside Fuchsia's chop-shop. Russel had his hands in his pockets and was very deliberately not looking at Ruby.

"You stole a car," she accused.

He winced. "Yep."

"Why?"

"...To buy my daggers."

"Oh."

Russel cleared his throat. "Anyway. What do you think of that tip?"

"It wasn't very good." Russel interpreted that as _wasn't worth my ten lien,_ and winced.

"I mean, uh... who do you think the woman is?"

Ruby shrugged. "Another one of Torchwick's minions? I don't know. And, hey, you _stole_ a _car."_

"I _know,"_ he snapped. "It's not like there was that much else I could do."

They were both silent for a while. "You really think I'm scary?"

Russel blinked. "I mean, you _do_ have a giant scythe..."

"You're right." She grinned. "I _am_ scary!" Her eyes glimmered fiercely. Russel briefly lost control of his motor functions, reached out, and ruffled her hair.

"Hey!"

"Sorry."

They started walking back towards Beacon. Ruby shot him a sidelong glance.

"What?"

"I'm starting to worry you're a bad influence on my sister."

Russel burst out laughing.

"Hey! Just because I'm the younger one, doesn't mean I can't be overprotective too!"

"It's not that," he choked out. "It's just... I mean, she's probably in a night club right now. With Nora."

"I know." Ruby sighed. "I really hope that's not the place I think it is."

Russel froze. "...Why?"

"Um... if it is, she might have trashed the place before."

He snorted, then started laughing again. "Yeah, I'm sure I'm a terrible influence on her."

"Shut up!"

"And I'm... I'm gonna teach her the evil arts of stealing."

He wiggled his fingers menacingly. Ruby smacked his shoulder.

"Because, you know, that's way worse than trashing a night club."

"That's my sister you're talking about!"

"You're right. We should worry about her corrupting you, too."

She hit him again.

"With puns."

Ruby paused. Considered.

"...You might have a point."


	19. Getting to Know You [4]

"We now commence—the second meeting of Operation Citizen's Arrest!" Ruby announced. Yang started clapping, and Nora joined her with a whoop. This was going to be _awesome!_

Pyrrha was still looking a little bit pale after this evening's adventure. That was fine, though—nothing a good night's sleep wouldn't cure. At least, that was how it usually worked with Ren.

Dove glanced around the room, then cleared his throat. "I suppose the leaders of each group can present their findings?"

"Who's the leader of our group, though?" Nora asked. "Because it was Yang's tip, but Pyrrha's the one who actually found the thing."

"You can present it," Pyrrha said. "Please."

Yang laughed. "Come on. It wasn't _that_ bad."

"I'm very sorry," Dove told Pyrrha.

"It's fine! Really! I'm just... well, we got back after curfew."

"Yeah, we noticed." Russel shrugged. "No big deal, right? I mean, Brine isn't technically supposed to be here right now."

"...We also got back through the window."

"I was wondering about that," Ren said. "Why—"

"Don't ask if you don't want to know, Ren!" Nora replied cheerfully. He decided not to ask.

 _"Anyway."_ Yang clapped her hands together. "Who's first?"

Russel raised his hand. "I mean, we could start by getting the underwhelming bit out of the way."

Ruby winced. "Heh, yeah. Turns out our lead didn't go very far."

"But!" Russel held up a finger. "We _did_ find out that apparently Torchwick was talking to a hot, scary lady with dark hair."

"Not Umbrella girl, then," Yang noted.

"Nope. No idea who she is, though. Or why she was talking to him. Or, y'know, anything about her aside from hot and scary."

"You're right," Nora said, nodding. "That is _super_ lame."

"What about you guys?" asked Ruby.

"We trashed the bar again," Yang said cheerfully.

"Yang!" Ruby burst out, indignant.

"Again?!" Dove buried his face in his hands.

Nora made a face. "Hey! The goons in that club were the ones that attacked you guys the other night. Y'know, the ones helping Torchwick and Umbrella Girl steal all that Dust."

"So... you blew up the club."

"There were no explosions!" Yang insisted. "Or fire! Please, just wait for it to happen _once_ before you assume it every time."

"No explosions?" Nora asked. "What about the—"

"No _big_ explosions."

"Moving on?" Ren suggested.

"Right!" Yang clapped her hands together. "We caused a distraction so that Pyrrha could slip into the back during the chaos and do some investigating."

"I found this." Pyrrha drew out a small slip of paper and handed it to Ruby. "It's a receipt for a parking meter, and someone had been planning to shred it. By the looks of it, it comes from somewhere in the docks."

"Weird to do that for something so boring, right?" Yang grinned. "I think we're winning so far."

"When did this become a contest?" Russel demanded, indignant.

Dove, oddly enough, didn't step in. Instead, he just smirked. "I think we might be about to one-up you." He spread out a map flat on the floor in front of him. "We have a spot Roman Torchwick might be storing all his stolen Dust."

They explained some of their methods—which Nora tuned out—and then showed off the part of the map they'd highlighted in yellow. It was further from the docks, near the river.

"So." Dove spread his hands. "What do we do first?"

Russel grinned. "To quote... probably a lot of people: Why not both?"

"You want to split up." Yang frowned. "That sounds like a bad idea."

"We're just scouting," Ruby pointed out. "It should be pretty safe with four people in each group. And anyway, we don't know how long this information is going to be good. Torchwick could move his stash, and whatever this thing is in the docks that Junior's people are doing might _already_ be over."

Dove made a face. "We don't exactly have a great track record for _just scouting."_

"Hey!" Yang jabbed a finger at him. "I'll have you know, our scouting mission turned violent only after careful forethought and planning!"

"You're proving my point."

"All in favor of not ignoring one of our leads?" Russel asked, raising his hand. Everyone except Dove followed suit. He sighed.

"Sorry, Dove!" Nora said.

"It's fine. As long as neither group is _only_ you, Yang, and Russel."

"Yeah, about that." Yang made a face. "I know we're just scouting—"

"I _guarantee_ that goes wrong somehow for at least one group."

"—but, y'know, that. So I'm going with Ruby."

"Yang!" Ruby groaned. "I'm not a little kid, I can take care of myself!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with being halfway across Vale if you get in another fight with a known criminal."

"I call Ren!" Nora added. "It's been way too long since we almost died together."

"You guys _would_ find that romantic."

"Jerk Jar, Russel!"

Ren blinked at that. "I'm not going to ask what that is. But I would like to go with Nora."

Nora cheered. "And we can go with Yang and Ruby, right?"

"Why not?" Yang grinned. "So... are we doing the thing with Torchwick, or Junior?"

Ruby pondered that for a moment. "Probably Junior. I mean, we already know you and Nora can fight him and his goons, right? We'd be fine even if Ren and me just broke out the popcorn instead of helping."

"That leaves me and Russel, and Sky and Pyrrha," Dove said. Russel nodded enthusiastically, but Pyrrha's smile looked a bit... fixed. "For scouting out possible locations for Torchwick's hideout. And it's incredibly unlikely we'll even find the right place, let alone manage to get into a shootout with him."

"Do you really want to tempt fate like that, Dove?" Russel asked.

"...Shut up."

"Okay!" Ruby clapped her hands together. "It's settled, then!"

"Are we heading out right now?" asked Russel.

"Yep." She hesitated. "I mean, Pyrrha and I were going to say goodbye to Jaune and Alabaster really quick. But after that... yep."

"In that case..." Russel clapped his hands together and stood up. "Let's see off our cousin team and then crack some skulls!"

"It's only a scouting mission," Pyrrha reminded him.

"For the record?" Dove rubbed his temple. "I'd prefer if 'It's just scouting' didn't end up on my tombstone."

Nora bopped him on the head. "Stop that. You're gonna jinx us."

* * *

"—and it's getting really annoying that Goodwitch blames us for everything. I swear, just last week in sparring a grenade got over the arena barrier and she looked at _us!"_

Sky faked a chuckle. He really wished he was back in the library.

"Russel," Dove said patiently, "It was Nora's grenade. Of _course_ she looked at us."

"Yeah, but it's not _our_ fault the barrier doesn't reach the ceiling!"

"It usually _does,_ but Yang shorted it out. By throwing one of our opponents at it."

"It's too flimsy! And it's not like anyone got hurt."

"It's the principle of the thing, Russ."

Bless team BRYN, honestly. Russel had been filling up the awkward silence almost single-handedly for over an hour, and now he'd baited Dove into a pointless debate. It almost made up for the fact that Pyrrha had barely said a word since they'd left Beacon.

At least it was Pyrrha. Sky was... well, he was _trying_ not to avoid his teammates, because Professor Port had a good point, but there was only so much awkwardness he could handle. Ren wasn't so bad, he didn't really talk that much anyway. Sky hadn't been alone with him yet, either—the closest had been research in the library with Dove. Ruby was still giving him combat lessons, and asking him for help with theory, but it was... weird. Just weird. Pyrrha, though, he thought would be easier. He wasn't her partner like he was with Ren, and she wasn't his leader like Ruby was. This could be like crossing the easiest bridge first.

"Well, everything's fine now, right?" he said. His grin wobbled a bit at the corners. Russel and Dove exchanged a look, then grinned right along with him. Sky had to fight not to cringe.

Pyrrha didn't smile. Didn't laugh. Didn't really respond at all. Sky's face fell.

"Anyway!" Russel piped up, a little desperately. "Which street should we head down? We have... gross and grimy road to the right, and gross and grimy slightly-better-lit road to the left!"

Dove raised an eyebrow. "We go left. I've told you this already, we're going in a spiral pattern—"

"Okay, okay!" Russel coughed into his hand. "But, uh... why are we going in a spiral?"

"It's the most efficient method. At least, if we aren't going to split up—which we _could,_ but considering how I'm already half-expecting us to end up in a brawl with Torchwick..."

_Bless team BRYN._

Sky glanced over his shoulder at Pyrrha. She was watching the other two, frowning slightly. Her head turned, and he looked away quickly.

This was fine. He could do this!

"So!" He paused. "Um. How about... this weather? We're having?"

Dove and Russel stopped dead, turned, and stared at him. Russel made an odd noise in the back of his throat, then clamped a hand over his own mouth and doubled over.

"We really do need a jar," Dove said absently, patting his teammate on the back.

"Hah." Sky could feel the heat radiating from his face. "Okay, so obviously I have no idea what I'm doing. But if you want to laugh at me, that's fine. I've accepted my fate."

Russel stopped using his fist to muffle his cackling. Pyrrha still wasn't looking at him.

"Um... Pyrrha?"

Nothing.

"I just... I know things are weird, but... I mean... can we just...?"

She turned her head so that he couldn't see her face.

"Right. Sorry."

"Hey!" Russel said suddenly. "I think I see something!" He took off at a jog, then hugged the side of one building. The rest of them followed.

Dove was about to walk right around the corner when Russel grabbed him. "What are you doing?!" he hissed. "Don't just wander out in front of it!"

"Wait, you actually saw something?"

"Wha—oh. Yeah, I actually did."

Sky peered out from the shadow of the warehouse next to them. "What are we looking at?" His voice cracked mid-sentence.

Russel pointed at the building directly ahead of them. Dove put his face in his hands. "You know we aren't hidden at _all_ right now, don't you?"

"Uh..."

Pyrrha backed up a few steps. There was a muted click, and then the door to the warehouse slid open.

"How'd you do that?" Russel asked, awestruck.

"Well... my semblance lets me control metal. So..." She gestured at the inward side of the door, where there was an open deadbolt.

"Whoa." Russel rocked back on his heels. "Remind me to teach you to pick locks."

The inside was empty, as they'd been expecting. More importantly, there was a window a few paces away, facing the place across the street Russel had pointed out. They crowded against the glass, with Sky and Pyrrha on opposite sides of the two from BRYN.

"See that?" Russel tapped the glass, indicating the second story. "There's a light."

They all turned to look at him. "Just because _some_ of these places are abandoned, Russel..." Dove began.

"No! Look at it!"

Sky frowned, narrowing his eyes. It flickered in one of the upper windows—that was an odd place for a light, he supposed, if there was apparently no one on the ground floor. Except... wait. _Flickered._

"It's a fire," he breathed.

"That doesn't exactly scream Torchwick," Dove pointed out. "As odd as it is."

"We should check it out!" Russel's eyes gleamed in the dark.

Sky winced at the twisted, sick feeling in his gut. "Yeah," he said. Squeaked, really. He got up before he could think about it and made for the door.

"Hang on a second," Dove started. Sky ducked out the door, ending up in the street. He stared at the warehouse. His feet kept moving. He didn't stop to figure out what to do, because he knew he'd freeze.

"Sky!" Russel tripped out of the warehouse, landed on his hands, then scrabbled to his feet and came tearing after him.

"For the love of all that is holy, do _not_ listen to Russel!" Dove called after him.

There were a lot of doors nearby. Sky picked one at random, rushing up to it and yanking on the handle. It didn't budge. There was an odd buzzing under his skin. It added up to an unpleasant, crawling sort of sensation, and he had the feeling that once it stopped he was going to freeze. He pulled again, leaning back with his full weight.

"Make way," Russel called out.

"Would you _at least_ keep it down?" Dove growled.

Russel elbowed Sky out of the way, plucked something shiny from his pocket, and set to work on the door. After a moment of fumbling and a lot of swearing, it clicked open.

"Breaking and entering," Dove said, with little to no inflection. "I'm just saying."

"Shh." Russel patted him on the head. "It's not like Torchwick will press charges."

"For all we know, Torchwick isn't _here—"_

That was all that Sky heard before he poked his head through the door. It came down to momentum, he thought, as he started down a dimly-lit hallway. If he kept moving, he wouldn't freeze, and if he froze he wouldn't be able to start moving again. Not momentum, then. Inertia. It wasn't courage, but it worked.

He passed a lot of doors, then paused in front of one of them. It was notable because it was heavy, made of corrugated metal and wide enough to drive a car through. Locked, but that was easily fixed. "Russel," he whispered. He paced back and forth while he waited. _An object in motion stays in motion._

"I really don't think this is a good idea." Pyrrha was only about halfway down the hall, looking around warily.

"I got it." Russel grinned and shoved the metal door up into the ceiling. "See? What do you bet it's Roman's... sweet... car..."

There were robots inside. Sky gaped at them for a solid twenty seconds, trying to put two and two together and fit the idea into his brain that an _Atlesian war machine_ was kicking around in what was now almost definitely Torchwick's warehouse. Not just _an_ Atlesian war machine, either—there were at least four of them. Hard to tell in the dark. And, painted on their sides...

"That's the White Fang insignia," he breathed.

"Wait." Russel was looking around, as if he was waiting for someone to explain the joke. "How are terrorists and a petty crook supposed to be connected?"

"That's a question for _later,"_ Dove whispered. "Right now, we need to get out of here."

Sky hesitated. _Inertia._ The pacing meant he was still in motion. His legs were shaking. He turned and wandered farther down the hallway, feeling a little bit feverish.

"Wait!"

He ignored the voice—probably Dove—and kept going. The hallway opened up into a wider room, two stories tall and with a catwalk along one wall. And on that balcony, there was a window. The flickering light was inside, bathing the metal walkway outside it with a warm, reddish glow.

Sky climbed the stairs as slowly as he dared. He couldn't stop moving, that was all. _Inertia._ He reached the top, crept along the wall until he was just beside the windowsill. Then, carefully, he peered inside.

He couldn't see the fire. He couldn't see much of anything, just an empty room. It was a loft of some kind, full of papers and with a map pinned to one wall. Then, something shifted. A shoulder moved into his field of view—bare on top, then covered by red fabric and glowing orange runes. Sky's heart caught in his throat and his stomach flipped. The flickering brightened. The shoulder moved again—they were going to turn, they were going to _look at him!_

Jerking backwards, he hit the metal railing and flipped over the side.

"Sky!"

His right foot hit the ground first. It twisted sideways, and he landed sprawled on the concrete floor. His chest heaved, but the air wouldn't come up. The lights dimmed, brightened, then dimmed again. It was fire, the fire from upstairs, he had to _go—_

"Sky!" A hand on his shoulder. He was being lifted sideways into a sitting position, still choking and gasping. A curtain of red hair brushed his arm.

"Pyrrha?"

"Are you hurt?" She still wasn't looking at him.

His ankle throbbed. "No."

"You okay, dude?" Russel crouched down in front of him. Sky shook his head.

"Someone's there," he hissed. "Upstairs! Where the fire is!"

"What?!"

"They'll... they'll see. We've got to go!"

The flickering light died, throwing them all into total blackness. Sky could _feel_ the owner of that shoulder in the other room, like a weight pressing down on his brain. He tripped over his twisted ankle as he fled. Pyrrha grabbed his arm and steadied him. Russel stopped briefly to close and lock the metal door he'd opened, and again when they left the warehouse.

"Don't want them to know someone was here."

Sky felt as though they already knew, but he forced himself to breathe. The light was gone, but there weren't any footsteps. They weren't being followed. He could still sense that strange pressure, though, like unfriendly eyes were nearby. Not watching him, though.

Not yet.

* * *

The Huntress they were shadowing hated them almost from the moment they met.

Her name was Camille Copper. She was a snake Faunus, with a pair of slitted orange eyes the likes of which even Blake hadn't seen in a long time. The second they landed on Weiss, she went from professionally courteous to curt and brusque. Blake was, at least as far as Camille knew, human and friends with Weiss, and therefore she was treated with the same borderline-hostile attitude. It was a very different brand of guilt-by-association than she was used to, but she found that it was still annoying.

"Listen, kiddies." Blake could _hear_ Weiss grinding her teeth. "We need to know what this thing is before we kill it. Based on reports, we're guessing it's probably a King Taijitu." She stopped talking and glared for several seconds. Blake had dealt with enough stupid cat jokes from Torchwick to know she was waiting for one of them to comment on her eyes. Neither did.

"The first step is finding it, obviously. The villagers have narrowed it down to the north-northeast sector of the forest." That was _very_ close to the White Fang base. Blake tried not to let her excitement show on her face. "We'll split up and search for any tracks, fresh kills, or other signs of a large Grimm in the area."

"Isn't that against reg—" Weiss started. Blake stepped on her foot. "Um, I mean... how will we know when we've found it?"

The woman eyed them both suspiciously. "You'll know if you see a Grimm more dangerous than an Ursa Minor, or signs of a Grimm more dangerous than an Ursa Minor." She made a disgusted noise. "I know you're only first years, but _really."_ Hiding the gesture with her body, Blake grabbed Weiss by the elbow to keep her from snapping back. The last thing they needed was to make this Huntress even _more_ hostile. Especially when she was splitting them all up so that Blake and Weiss could slip away unnoticed.

"Right. Both of you, keep your scrolls on you at all times. I'll be checking in with each of you every hour or so. If you find the Grimm, call me. If you get yourselves hurt, call me. If you get lost—"

"Call you. We get the idea."

"Weiss," Blake warned.

"Fine," she gritted out.

Camille smirked. "Right. I'm trusting you two to do more than wipe your noses without me watching. Don't do anything stupid. Remember, when we find this thing we're going to want to plan around its nest and the surrounding terrain. All three of us. Don't go charging in half-cocked. I don't need the paperwork."

Blake could almost _feel_ Weiss opening her mouth to say something—possibly pointing out that there was even _more_ paperwork involved in sending the two of them off without any supervision on their first mission, which she was most definitely not supposed to be doing. She stepped on her foot again.

Camille noticed, but didn't seem to care. "You two each brought camping supplies? Food?"

"Yes," Blake told her. She thought it was probably a bad idea to let Weiss talk right now.

"Good. One thing you _don't_ call me for is complaining about roughing it."

"We won't. Blake smiled politely, and tightened her grip on Weiss' arm. Camille produced a map.

"Schnee? You take the north end, just under the river. Blake, you'll be to the south of that, along here. I'll search the forest nearest the village."

"That works." Blake nodded, because smiling was beyond her by that point.

"Good. Let's get moving. With any luck we find this thing before the end of the day."

Blake had the sense that Camille wanted this mission to be over as soon as possible. She couldn't help but agree. The woman was a better traveling companion than Cardin, though—she felt another pang of sympathy for Jaune. _Taking one for the team is an understatement._

It was a relief when they reached the part of the woods Blake was supposed to search, and she and Weiss finally broke away from Camille. The two would continue north for a while, until Blake turned east and Weiss kept going into her own sector of forest. Until then...

"Of all the condescending, obnoxious, _vile—"_

"Weiss."

"She's sending us off on our own! We're supposed to sleep in the same forest an unknown Grimm has been using as its hunting grounds, _alone!_ That might be convenient, but it's also completely irresponsible! I wouldn't put it past her to be _hoping_ we die out here!"

_"Weiss."_

"Ugh. What?"

Blake sighed. "She's doesn't know us. All she sees is a pair of humans, and sometimes that brings up bad memories for people."

"That's no excuse for not doing her job!"

"No. It isn't." She mustered up a smile. "It _is_ helpful, though."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Yes, fine. What's the plan, then?"

Blake bit her lip. "It all depends on us finding the Grimm before Camille. We can raid the nest ourselves, then head east to where the base is."

"Wait." Weiss held up a hand. "You do remember what Camille said, don't you? That we need to figure out what type of Grimm it is, come up with a plan, and then attack it together?"

"I thought you didn't like her."

"It's not a question of whether or not I like her! We can't just jump in with no plan, Blake."

"What else are we supposed to do?"

Weiss bit her lip.

"If you're about to say _go home—"_

"I'm not!" She huffed. "Look, I'm just saying that this is incredibly reckless. We shouldn't just jump in like we're trying to—"

"We _don't_ have another choice."

"Would you stop interrupting me!" Weiss glared at her.

Blake scowled. "I'm not going back with _nothing."_

"...Fine."

When it came time to part ways, Blake started back towards the village. She decided that she'd veer a little into the area Camille was supposed to search—the Huntress already thought they were idiots, so she might as well use that. The more area she and Weiss covered, the better their odds of finding the Grimm first. Then... well, they could probably get to the White Fang base and back in about a day. Based on the map, it would probably take until at least dinnertime tomorrow for Camille to search her whole section of forest. They would have time, as long as the Grimm had chosen to lair in the right place. Blake grimaced—she hated relying on luck, mostly because hers was terrible.

Twenty minutes into her search, she considered her options. She could move faster than she was—it was just that she'd be risking overlooking the nest. But, then again... if she overlooked the nest, it would still be within the part of the forest she was supposed to search. Camille wouldn't find it first. She sped up, then, keeping mostly to the tops of trees so that she wouldn't have to deal with the few stray Beowolves that called this forest home.

Three check-ins from Camille later, she found it. A grassy knoll that covered a small opening between two rocks, distinguishable only by its smell. If it weren't for her sharpened senses, she probably wouldn't have noticed it. As it was, she _almost_ wished she hadn't—Grimm didn't have any odor. Their kills did.

Fumbling with her scroll, she selected Weiss' contact. Half a ring sounded before Weiss picked up. "Did you find it?"

"Yes."

"I'm on my way."

The connection went dead. Blake made sure her scroll was broadcasting her location, then tucked it into her pocket and waited. Time felt like it was slipping away from her far too quickly. Camille checked in again. Blake looked around, noting anxiously that the sun had nearly set. If they were going to get back in time, without their absence being noticed...

She dropped down from the tree she'd been perched in, landing silently near the cave. Slowly, cautiously, she approached the entrance.

"Blake."

She nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Weiss? How did you even get here so fast?!"

"There's another village north of here. If the Grimm were close to it, that's where the call would have come from. With most of my sector ruled out, I started searching yours."

Blake nodded and turned back to the cave.

"Hang on! Were you about to go in there just now?!"

She winced. "I wasn't going to try and fight it alone. I thought I could figure out what it was, then spend my time planning instead of waiting." Before Weiss could respond—and before an argument had a chance to start, wasting _even more time—_ she ducked between the two boulders and into the Grimm's lair.

Her partner followed behind her, then choked as the smell grew strong enough for her to pick up. Blake's eyes watered. She reached into her back pocket, pulling out a pair of black masks and handing one to Weiss.

"What is this?"

"A balaclava. The cloth will filter out some of the smell."

"Do you _always_ walk around with all the materials necessary to hold up a bank?"

 _I used to._ "It's for the White Fang base. I'd rather they didn't recognize us."

"Oh."

They fell silent, creeping further into the cave. Weiss had to hold up her scroll in order to see. The cave narrowed briefly due to a moss-flecked boulder lodged in the passageway. Blake pressed her hand against its pale, scarred surface as she squeezed past it.

"I don't like this," Weiss whispered.

Blake didn't like it either. The hair on the back of her neck was standing on end.

Finally, they found themselves in a decent-sized hollow in the earth, about ten feet in diameter. Bones littered the ground, and Weiss made a small, distressed noise at the sight. Blake gritted her teeth, scanning every shadow. There was nothing there.

"It must be out hunting," she said, this time at a more normal volume. "Maybe we can lay a trap, or—"

The ground shook.

"We need to go." Weiss grabbed her arm. "Now."

Blake whirled around and made for the way they'd come, only to freeze in place. Weiss knocked into her from behind. "What are you doing?"

Its eyes were closed. The bone carapace was spotted with moss and lichen, and two massive pincers flanked it on either side. There were too many legs—Blake realized with a sudden sinking feeling that there was probably a stinger somewhere behind it, hidden by its bulk.

Even as she watched, it opened its beady red eyes. Scarlet markings flickered to life, giving the cave an eerie glow. It raised its stinger. Weiss hissed in a breath and backed away.

"Deathstalker," Blake hissed.

_"I noticed."_

It paused for a moment, its armor creaking ominously. Then it closed its eyes, smothering the red glow. Hid its stinger.

This wasn't the first time Blake's eyesight had saved her life, and it probably wouldn't be the last. She dove to the left, dragging Weiss behind her, as the right pincer crashed into the ground where they'd been standing. Her partner yelped, then pointed her shaking scroll at the Grimm.

"We need to get around it," Blake shouted.

"How?! I can barely even _see_ it!"

The Grimm didn't advance all the way into the cave. It opened two of its eyes, the smallest ones. Blake guessed that they weren't glowing as brightly as the others, though she could see just as well with them closed so it was hard to tell the difference. It lunged for Weiss' hand, the one with the light. _It's smart enough to strategize. Great._

"Follow me." She guided Weiss by the elbow, until they were at the furthest point possible from the entrance. The Deathstalker paused for a moment, considering them. Then, it lunged.

"Ice!"

Weiss was already spinning her rapier and stabbing it into the ground. The Deathstalker crashed into the barrier as it formed, shrieked, then lashed out with one claw. It clipped Blake's shoulder, but her Aura held up. Then it was stuck, thrashing angrily. Cracks rent the air, and shards of ice showered down around them.

"Up and over!"

Blake grabbed her partner by the wrist and jumped onto the Deathstalker's head. With her free hand, she stabbed down at one of its eyes. It jerked out of the way, and they lost their balance. Weiss kicked off so that she tumbled end over end, landing on the other side instead of right in front of the monster's face. Blake went along for the ride. They landed in a heap on the cave floor, with the scroll skidding several feet away, facedown.

The Deathstalker lurched, smashing its head against the cave wall as it freed itself. Its stinger came down.

"Left!"

Weiss pushed herself sideways, only barely avoiding being struck. Her Aura would _probably_ have protected her, but probably was a dangerous thing when it came to Deathstalker venom. Blake pushed herself upright and led the way out of the cave, dragging her partner behind her. She paused just long enough to scoop up the scroll and point the light ahead of them. Even with that, Weiss tripped over a stone and Blake half-carried her for a few paces until she regained her balance.

The boulder they'd passed on the way in was conspicuously absent.

"Wait!" Weiss skidded to a stop in the cave's mouth, so quickly that Blake almost bowled her over.

"What?"

She pointed to a hairline crack running up one side of the entrance. Blake grinned. More rumbling emanated from deeper underground, along with an enraged squeal.

"I'll distract it."

"Hang on! You can't just—"

"Warn me when it's about to come down."

"Blake!"

She met the Deathstalker halfway down the tunnel. It spanned almost the entire width of the passage, which made dodging around it difficult. Difficult—but not impossible. She leapt over one swing of a claw, then slid underneath it, dragging Gambol Shroud along its belly for good measure. The armor was weaker there but not nonexistent. Very little damage was done.

The Deathstalker tried to turn around, only to crash into the cave walls and make the whole thing shudder warningly. Blake could hear the telltale high-pitched splintering of ice forming.

"Blake," Weiss called out. "If you want me to time when this thing collapses, would you _please_ stop speeding up the process?!"

She was too busy dodging a sudden strike of the monster's stinger to respond. Then, it made an irritated clicking noise and started forward again. Blake couldn't have that, so she jumped up and sank Gambol Shroud into the joints between two segments of its tail. It howled, then crashed into the wall again. Bits of stone rained down from the ceiling, and an ominous rumble start it up.

"What did I _just_ say?" Weiss snapped. "Get out, get out _now!"_

Blake tried to repeat her trick of slipping under its belly. The Deathstalker flattened itself mid-dash, pinning her underneath it. She cried out, shoved ineffectually against it, then tried to grab one of its legs and pull herself loose. At least it wasn't crushing her—apparently it couldn't get that close to the ground with the way its joints were structured. The cave shook again, and she heard a loud _crunch_ somewhere above her.

She could wriggle forward, but it was slow. As a last desperate measure, she threw Gambol Shroud out from under the Deathstalker and held onto the ribbon with both hands. Seconds later, she felt a tug. She emerged on the other side bruised and scraped, but managed to roll to her feet.

The Deathstalker scuttled forward, shrieking challenge and snapping its pincers. Weiss was no longer standing next to the crack in the wall. It had been pushed wide open by the ice, and Blake could see the ceiling shaking.

"Come on!" Weiss shouted.

"Just a second!" Another stone fell from the ceiling and landed on one of the Deathstalker's legs, making it squeal in pain. It advanced, clicking and hissing. She bit her lip, thinking fast—then she pushed a shadow clone out towards the creature. It snapped its head to the side and bit down, only to find itself with a mouthful of shadows. Blake herself turned and bolted as a deafening _crack_ rent the air, and several tons of rock and earth collapsed on the Grimm. She landed at the bottom of the hill, facedown in the grass.

"Are you okay?!" Weiss grabbed her arm and gently turned her over. Blake managed a weak nod. Her partner's nostrils flared. "Everything about that plan was terrible."

Blake groaned an agreement.

"Can you stand?"

That was a more difficult question. An experimental push told her that she could, in fact, stand. She could even walk, though she stumbled a few times. Slowly, she picked her way over to the rubble in the cave entrance. Black smoke was oozing through some of the cracks.

"Good," she panted. "I really didn't want to have to try to dig down there and kill it."

"I really didn't want to almost crush you," Weiss grumbled. "Sometimes we end up doing things we don't want to."

Blake winced. "Oh."

 _"Oh?_ That's seriously all you have to say." Weiss whirled around and jabbed a finger at her eye-level. Blake jerked her head away, ears pulling back under her bow. "I very nearly dropped a ton of rocks on you just now. That is not okay. That is not even _remotely_ okay!"

"I'd be in much worse shape if you hadn't, if that helps."

_"Not even a little."_

"I'm sorry if that didn't go completely as planned, but it _worked."_

Weiss raised a hand, then clenched it into a fist and put it down. "I can't believe you. I actually _cannot_ believe you."

"Did you have a _better_ idea?"

"We're... we're friends, right?" Weiss hesitated. "I mean, we've certainly been practicing almost dying together—"

Blake sighed and looked at the ground. "Yes, we're friends."

"...Right. So you can see why it's _maybe_ a little bit upsetting to watch you risk your life so casually."

 _Oh._ "That's not..."

"Isn't it? I know what we're trying to do is important, but... that doesn't make us expendable. Quite the opposite, actually. There's no leading a crusade if you die."

Blake sighed, rubbing her temples. "You're right."

"Of course I am." Weiss gave her a _look._ "So?"

"What?"

"At what point am I going to get an apology? Or at least a promise not to do it again?"

"Fine." She sighed, then held out a hand. "Sorry."

"Good." Weiss nodded. "Because I... I would prefer if you didn't get yourself hurt."

Blake smiled. "Right."


	20. Getting to Know You [5]

No one else was there when Pyrrha opened the door to RSPR's dorm. She checked her scroll. Seven forty-five.

"I hate being right," Dove grumbled, looking around the room as if maybe the rest of them were hiding in the shadows somewhere. Russel and Sky walked in after him. The latter was still limping a little.

"They might be fine," Russel said. "Pyrrha got back late last—okay, bad example, but... uh...'

"They'll be alright." Pyrrha put on a smile. "Whether downtown Vale will be intact is up in the air, though."

Dove groaned. "Mind if I sit on the floor?"

Pyrrha shook her head. "Make yourself at home." She started fussing with her comforter, eager for something to occupy her hands. And an excuse not to look at her teammate.

Russel apparently took that as an invitation to flop face-first onto Ren's bed. "Ugh. So, I know we can't exactly throw stones considering how _our_ 'Recon Mission' went," he said, making quotation marks in the air, "but at least we got back on time. And didn't actually fight anyone. Really, we could call ours recon and infiltration. Lots of stealth."

"Yes, Russel," Dove agreed, voice dry. "You're very stealthy."

"Hey! I could be, you don't know! Maybe I sneak out of the dorm every night to moonlight as a cat burglar!"

"Please don't joke about that around Yang and Nora."

The conversation petered out after that, and the room stayed quiet for a long while. She gave up on pretending to straighten her bed and dug out a textbook. By the fifth time she needed to reread the same first sentence, she'd resigned herself to only pretending to do _that,_ too.

Pyrrha checked the time—five past eight, now. "I wonder if they're coming in through the window."

Russel burst out laughing. "Oh, yeah! I'd forgotten about that." Pyrrha felt the tips of her ears heating up.

"I hope they're back soon," Sky said.

Pyrrha grimaced and flipped a page in her textbook. She heard a shift, as Sky moved a little on his own mattress. "Um."

The silence stretched just a little too long before Russel coughed. "So, uh... why the window? I mean, what's the point?"

"According to Yang, it's faster. There's a tree that grew close to two of the windows. One of them leads to Alabaster's room, I think, and the other goes to the hallway. You can climb through there and get straight to the second floor."

"Wow." He laughed. It didn't sound genuine. "That's, uh... really cool!"

"I could show you, if you like. Tomorrow, maybe?"

She glanced up just in time to see Russel and Dove exchanging a look. The former turned and forced a grin. "Nah, we have Yang and Nora. But, y'know, it might be fun for you to show your team."

"Ruby and Ren have Yang and Nora, too," she snapped. Sky's breath hitched.

Russel closed his book with a _snap._ "Wow. And _I'm_ the one who needs a Jerk Jar? Since when are you this snippy?"

Her jaw clenched. "That's really none of your business."

"No, it's not! But you're kind of making it my business by being _impossible_ to be around! The hell is with you two?"

Sky's voice was almost too quiet to make out. "You're still angry." It wasn't a question.

Pyrrha hesitated, then nodded.

Russel muffled a groan into one hand. "Oh, boo fu—frickin' hoo! I've abandoned Dove to Nora's tender mercies more times than I can count, and he's not holding any grudges!"

"Hang on, you've been doing that on purpose?!"

"Shush. Point is, you didn't die. You didn't die _because he called Goodwitch._ So either get over it or hit him. Until then, I'm out." He stood up and made for the door. "See you guys later."

Dove winced. "Sorry about that. But... he might have a point." With that, he too left the room.

Pyrrha stared at the floor. Sky stared at the ceiling. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

Then, "...Sorry."

She let out a long breath through her nose. "Me too."

"It's just... I tried. I did. I couldn't do it."

"You're the third friend I've ever made," Pyrrha murmured. "And you left the first two for dead."

More silence.

"...Is hitting me an option?"

"I don't think it works like that outside team Brine."

"Oh."

Pyrrha opened her mouth to say something, to tell him she was worried. He'd been dangerously quick to hurl himself into danger, earlier. But if she said it, she wasn't sure if it would sound like she was completely forgiving him or chastising him for being so reckless. She didn't want to do either.

"We're still teammates," she said instead.

He made a small noise in the back of his throat, then bolted for the bathroom. It took Pyrrha nearly twenty minutes to realize he'd taken that to mean _not friends._

* * *

"Perfect Pearl's Practical Parking," Nora read aloud. "So... anyone seen that around before?"

"I think I'd probably remember that," Ruby said. "I mean, it's very... um..."

Ren nodded agreement.

Yang looked around, as if a sign for Perfect Pearl's Practical Parking would appear out of thin air. The receipt Pyrrha had found was incredibly suspicious, but she did wish it had been more specific. Maybe with an address stamped on the back. Instead, they had a name and a vague reference to an extra ten lien paid for "Dockside Insurance." None of them could quite figure out what that meant, but it did narrow things down a little.

"Where do we even start?" asked Ruby. "I mean, we're in the docks... and that's like, a third of Vale. Maybe if we ask people, they can tell us where it is? It's not like anyone's gonna forget that name in a hurry."

Ren held up his scroll. "We could just look them up."

"Oh. Um, that works too."

Nora beamed at him. "See? That's why you should always bring a Ren on every adventure."

Ruby high-fived her. Yang made the conscious decision not to squish them both together in a hug. Mostly because between her and Nora, Ruby might get a little _too_ squished. Still! Getting her little sister and her teammate to bond while simultaneously learning about one of said sister's new friends? _Yes._

Once Ren had followed his own suggestion, the four of them crowded around his scroll and stared. There was a map. With a little red icon. And a button to give them exact directions.

"Woah," Nora breathed. "Guys, look! We have a mini-map!"

"This is _way_ easier than last time," Ruby agreed.

Yang frowned at the scroll. "I'm not sure if I like the idea of you being able to find danger easier."

"...I mean, you're with me this time?"

"That _does_ make me feel better."

They found the parking lot within twenty minutes. Ruby checked her scroll. "Okay, so we have two hours to look around and then we need to go back."

"I think I found it." All eyes turned to Nora. She pointed at the warehouse across the street, where a suspiciously well-dressed man in sunglasses was loitering in one doorway. He wasn't _exactly_ wearing the usual uniforms, mostly because the sunglasses were black instead of red, but... honestly.

"It's almost lame how easy this is," Yang complained.

Ren sighed. "Please don't say that."

"But it is!"

The goon dug a cigarette out of his pocket and fumbled with a lighter. Yang held out a hand, as if presenting him as evidence. He glanced in their direction, and all four of them had to dive behind a parked car.

"You were saying?" Ren asked.

"Um, what do we do now?" Ruby peeked out from around the side of the car. "I mean, I'd planned for wandering around looking for the place, I didn't think they'd just be standing there across the street."

Nora grinned. "I vote we go in and look around."

"We're supposed to be scouting, Nora," Ren pointed out.

"Yeah, scouting! The fancy word for looking around!"

Ruby hummed thoughtfully. "I mean, we don't have to fight or anything. And the whole point of this is to see what they're up to. For all we know, there's just another club in there or something."

Ren hesitated. "You have a point," he admitted.

"Yes!"

"But I still have a feeling I'm going to regret this."

"Ignore it," Yang suggested. "It'll go away."

"And be replaced with real regret!" Nora cheered. "Or is that adrenaline?"

"Both!"

Ruby looked from one to the other, then winced. "Um, okay. Just... try not to blow anything up, okay guys?"

"My own sister," Yang gasped, clutching at her heart. "Throwing baseless accusations! Besides, you've caused more explosions than me."

 _"What?_ Yang, don't bring that up!"

"Excuse me!" said a snide voice from behind them. A woman was standing there, with pale grey hair and a twitching eye. "Are you four going to _park_ anything, or were you just planning on loitering all day?"

"My humblest apologies," Ren said hurriedly, grabbing both Yang and Nora by their forearms and backing away. They circled around the warehouse until they were out of sight of the guard they'd first spotted. In an alleyway to the back, a rusted metal door stood between an overflowing dumpster and a holographic terminal. Ruby frowned at it. Glanced at her scythe.

"Let's consider our options, first," Ren suggested.

In the end, it was decided that Yang would probably be their quietest way in, if only because she could use her bare hands rather than a giant metal blade or a warhammer. She pushed down on the handle, wincing as the lock made a tortured squealing noise and then broke. The door swung open with a low groan, revealing a dimly-lit hallway. The floor was a brand of off-white linoleum Yang couldn't help associating with hospitals.

"I think breaking and entering is more hands-on than traditional scouting," Ren said.

"And way better!" Nora grinned at him. Yang winced and put a finger to her lips. "Oops! Sorry."

The corridor turned. Yang almost ran directly into one of Junior's grunts. He stared at her for a moment, his mouth making a little 'O' of surprise. She decked him, and he crumpled.

"That _definitely_ isn't scouting," Ren noted, a bit tiredly.

"Too late now, we might as well see what's going on." Yang flashed a sheepish grin.

Ruby frowned. "I think Nora's a bad influence on you."

"They're bad influences on each other." Ren sighed and pointed down the hallway. "Shall we?"

They crept down a corridor, with Yang having awful flashbacks to the time she and Nora had done the exact same thing in Beacon's hallways. It was... marginally stealthier this time. Less ducking behind each other and giggling. They were tiptoeing, too! Really, she wasn't sure what more anyone could ask. By the pained look on Ren's face, he disagreed.

The next turn in the hallway, Ruby made them all stop while she crouched down and poked her head out at about knee-height, then pulled it back again. "There's two of them," she whispered. "Guarding a door. We need to knock them out quietly."

Yang looked from herself, to her little sister who wielded a blade taller than she was that was also a _really loud_ gun. Then to Nora. All three of them then turned to Ren. He sighed.

"We'll have to lure one of them over here without making them too suspicious," he murmured.

"Ooh!" Nora whisper-shouted, which was about as quiet as she ever spoke. "Pick me!"

She knocked on the wall—a single, light tap. There was a slight hiccup when _both_ guards wandered out to check. Yang wasn't sure if that was surprisingly intelligent of them, or extra stupid. Either way, they managed to knock out both of them. Unfortunately, in the scuffle one of the mooks kicked over a stack of plywood. It hit the ground with a clatter that felt _deafening._ For a few seconds, none of their group breathed. There was no sound, no shout of alarm. They relaxed.

"Okay." Ruby nodded to herself. "Maybe we _are_ good at stealth."

Yang and Nora may have disproved that, just a little, when they had a brief squabble over who would look under the crack in the door. Ruby got the gap between the it and the wall, near the knob. Ren just leaned forward to press his ear against its surface.

She could see... something. A dark shape, maybe a person but probably just a box or a desk or something. As she was about to draw away, there was a flicker of movement as someone's shadow passed near the door.

Then, a gunshot.

It took everything Yang had not to yelp or make a sound. She seized Ruby by the arm, looking behind them to make sure no one had snuck up on them. They hadn't.

"I _told_ you," someone drawled from the other side of the door. "She doesn't care _how_ you do it. Just get it done. Or, well... next time it's not a warning shot."

"That's going to be a little difficult," grumbled a second voice. Yang tensed—that was Junior.

"Suck it up."

"There are only so many people willing to sell to me, and they're getting spooked—"

"Yeah, see... I'm not here to plan this out. That's _your_ problem. I'm just telling you your deadline. Meet it, or don't. She won't be happy if you don't."

Yang and the others exchanged glances. _'She?'_ Ruby mouthed. Nora shrugged.

"I'm _trying._ Threaten me all you want, I can't do the impossible. I need more time, and a little more lien wouldn't hurt—"

"She gave you as much as she's gonna give you. Coming around begging for more won't be good for your health."

 _Who is_ _she?_ Yang narrowed her eyes at the door.

"Bye Junior! Here's hoping I'll be back in a week or so, I'd just _love_ to be the one who terminates your contract."

Ren jerked back and away from the door. It suddenly occurred to Yang that the unknown voice had been getting louder. Footsteps sounded outside of the door, and it swung open just as they were scrambling back and away from it. All four of them froze.

Silhouetted in the doorway was the owner of the second voice. He was surprisingly young—probably not much older than they were. He had silver hair, a narrow face, and was wearing an expression somewhere between disbelief and excitement.

"Well," he said, clapping his hands together. "Guess this wasn't a waste of time after all!"

Yang engaged her gauntlets and burst forward, aiming a fist at his jaw. He slipped back and away from her, spun on his heel, then lashed out with one foot. A gunshot went off, and she felt her Aura dip. Heat swelled in her stomach, sang in her blood.

"Okay," she proclaimed. "I guess we failed at scouting." She parried another kick with the back of her forearm and swung at his side.

Ruby's scythe unfolded and three shots rang out, forcing the goon to retreat further into the new room. "You think?!"

"I'm _so_ glad that stealth stuff is over!" Nora cheered.

Junior came tearing around a stack of crates, then grimaced. "Damn it, Blondie."

"You know her?" The silver-haired thug raised an eyebrow.

"For what it's worth," Junior said, "I'm sorry about this."

"I'm not." One of the twins poked her head out from behind him, then swaggered forward. The other emerged from the opposite side, smirking.

"We'll take those two," Ren suggested.

Yang grinned. "I call Junior!"

The thug laughed. "Alright, Junior! Avenge your poor bar! Try not to get beat up by a kid again."

"Hey!" Ruby said indignantly. "...Wait, were you talking about Yang? Sorry, it's kind of a reflex at this point."

"Enough talk." Junior's face was set in a grimace as he glanced at the thug. "Let's get this over with."

Yang took that as her cue to launch herself at him. He straightened, holding his bat in one hand. She struck out at his face, his chest, and his side. He backpedaled, blocking frantically. In the background, she could hear gunshots—heavy ones from Crescent Rose, and the lighter patter of Ren's weapons. There was another kind, too, probably from the thug. "Not sure what you were expecting, Junior," she taunted, landing a solid kick to his knee that made him yelp. "This didn't exactly go your way last time."

"Not much choice." He was scowling at his weapon.

"What? Not gonna throw explosives at me?" She winked. "You're not going soft, are you?"

She knew full well he didn't want to blow them all sky-high—assuming those crates _were_ full of Dust, which considering most of them had the SDC logo stamped on the side was probably a safe bet. Still, teasing him was fun.

Junior chuckled. There wasn't much humor in it. "I think I am. Not sure how you can grow on people by constantly threatening their livelihood, but there you go."

"Wow, okay." She paused halfway through a set of punches, shaking her head in disbelief. He lunged at her, slamming his bat into her shoulder. She caught it there, pulled, and brought his gut into her knee. "I guess I'll take that as a compliment."

He glanced to the side, and she punished him with a jab to the chest. "You _did_ teach me something. Not worth the wrecked bar, but still."

"Really?" She cocked an eyebrow. "What's that?"

He bowed his head slightly. "It doesn't pay to underestimate people."

Yang laughed. "Hey, not my fault you thought fighting me would end quickly. _Definitely_ not my fault you did it again the second time." Something was wrong. The look on his face...

Then, from behind her, there was a heavy _clang_ and a cry of pain. Yang whirled around, reached out. "Ruby!"

The thug was standing in front of her, grinning. She'd been knocked into one of the crates, sending it sliding backwards—and overbalancing all the ones on top of it. Yang tensed, ready to sprint. Then Junior shot her in the back with one of his rockets.

She went flying, hit the ground, flipped over, then skidded into the wall. Her head spun, more from vertigo than anything else. She opened her eyes in time to watch the stack of crates beginning to slide. Her legs weren't under her, and as she scrabbled to her feet the guy from before spun around and kicked out at her. A bullet hit her in the shoulder. The crates fell.

Fire erupted from her. Too slow. Everything was too slow...

A flash of green, and the crates stopped. Ren was half-kneeling under them, wincing at the weight. Yang could breathe again. She turned, very slowly, to stare at the silver-haired boy. He winked.

The next few seconds felt jagged, like bits of broken glass. She was swinging at his head, his legs. She kicked him in the chest and he flipped over and onto his feet again. Bullets slammed into her. They were ignored.

"Yang!"

The person calling her wasn't Ruby, so she ignored that, too. Her vision tunneled to just the boy, and his legs, and that _stupid grin._

"Hey, c'mon! She's okay!"

Nora. Yang glanced towards the sound of her voice and watched Ruby inching out from under the crates. Ren dropped them behind him as soon as she was through. They were safe. _Good._

More shards of time. His eyes were grey. She aimed a bullet-enhanced punch at one of them and got a kick to the gut for her trouble. Her body bounced off the floor. She rolled upright again. It felt like the air around her was boiling.

"She's okay!" Nora again. "But you probably won't be if you keep doing that, so—hey!" Another sidelong glance. The twins were attacking her. That was fine. If Yang could deal with the two of them on her own, so could Nora. She'd pay them some attention, though. A few looks here and there. That wasn't a mistake she'd repeat.

The thug hit her shoulder with another bullet while she was distracted. She grabbed him by the arm and threw him bodily into one of the crates. The stack fell, but he had enough momentum that he landed behind them instead of underneath. One of them burst open, spilling yellow boxes onto the floor. He glanced up, smirked, then kicked one at her. It ignited on contact with her skin, activating with a sharp _crack._

The next thing Yang knew, she was on the other side of the room, sizzling. Everything felt numb. She struggled into a sitting position. She was still on fire. That meant her aura hadn't broken.

Hands closed over her eyes and ears. She jerked away, but stopped when she heard Nora's voice. "Ruby's fine. We're all okay. We can win as long as we don't stop thinking. Okay?"

Yang tried to get up again. Nora pushed her down. _"Okay?"_

Slowly, the fire dimmed a little. Heat crept out of her bones. She took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Great! Now let's rip that guy's limbs off!"

Yang took stock of the room, still heaving in deep breaths. Junior was crumpled against one of the crates. One twin, Militia, was lying unmoving on the ground. The other was hanging from a light fixture. All probably Nora's work. Ren was up, apparently not too much worse off for having held up half a ton of Dust. Ruby was, too, but she was hanging back behind him with her rifle out. Her aura must have broken. And Nora...

Well, Nora looked almost as angry as she felt.

"Hey, you!" She pointed her hammer at him. It made for a very emphatic gesture. "C'mere!"

He raised his eyebrows. He was _still smirking._ Yang, Nora, and Ren all advanced on him, with Ruby following a little behind them and taking potshots. His smile slipped. "Well," he said, chuckling a little. "So much for Junior being useful. Not worth protecting, really."

"Oh, no you _don't!"_ Yang gritted out, sprinting forward.

The boy pushed over a crate, popping it open and scattering boxes of burn Dust on the ground. They slid the length of the warehouse, connecting with the pile of energy Dust that he'd kicked at Yang earlier. She stopped running, very mindful of the fact that she was still on fire.

"Damn it!" She started trying to navigate the piles of Dust everywhere without kicking any of them into one another. He had already disappeared from view.

Ruby lowered her scythe. "Okay, as much as I hate to let him get away..."

"It'd be worse to blow ourselves up," Ren finished. "Agreed."

"Damn it," Yang repeated. Nora bopped her on the ear.

"No swearing around the Raspberries, remember?"

Ruby made an indignant noise. "Why is that a rule?!"

"Russel," Yang and Nora answered in unison.

She pouted. Yang ran over to where she was sitting, looking her over for injuries. "Oh, come on! Not this again!"

"I need to see if you're okay!"

"You're the one that got _electrocuted!"_ Ruby grabbed her arm. "Please don't do that again."

Yang tried to laugh. "Yeah, I don't exactly plan on it."

"You know what I mean."

She winced. "I'm sorry." Then she turned to where Ren and Nora were standing. "And... thank you."

Nora saluted. Ren glanced at her, shrugged, then copied the gesture. Ruby giggled at them. Yang wrapped her up in a hug. They stayed that way for a moment, savoring it. Then...

"What do we do with them?" Nora asked, pointing Junior and the two bouncers. Melanie slipped off the light fixture and landed on a crate with a dull _thump._

"Um..." Ruby hesitated. "I mean, we should probably report them to the police." She cringed. "Who wants to call Goodwitch?"

"Not it!" Nora said, putting a finger on her nose. Yang and Ruby followed suit. All three of them turned to Ren.

He looked back at them for a moment, then sighed.

* * *

The Huntsman Jaune and Cardin were shadowing looked distinctly unimpressed. Jaune couldn't blame him—he wasn't very impressed either. The guy was balding, green-haired in the same way as Oobleck but with maybe a tenth of the energy. He walked slowly, and carried both a massive kite shield and a sword that he let drag on the ground. He stared at them for a while. They stared back.

"This is _it?"_ Cardin sneered. Jaune winced.

"Sorry, Mr., uh...?"

"Corduroy." He blinked watery blue eyes, then grimaced. "This is... less intimidating than I was expecting. Aren't you kids supposed to be the real extra-curricular type? I figured you'd be..."

"Top students?" Jaune forced a grin. "We're, uh... working on that."

"Uh-huh."

" _We're_ less intimidating than you were expecting?" Cardin demanded. "You're pathetic."

The man looked at him for a moment, then smirked. "Tell you what, kid. Survive thirty-six years in this business, and _then_ maybe I'll take you seriously when you talk to me like that."

Cardin opened his mouth again. "So!" Jaune said hurriedly. "What, uh... what are we doing?"

"Beowolves." Mr. Corduroy rubbed the scruff on his chin. "A pack of about twelve."

"Seriously?" Cardin rolled his eyes. "I killed more than that during initiation. Hell, I took down the _Alpha."_

Mr. Corduroy glowered at him. "Underestimating the Grimm is a good way to die," he said. "Just ask my teammates."

Silence reigned.

"There's just one Alpha, that's all a pack this small needs. They're in the woods, over there." He pointed. "You two are going to be sticking with me, but I won't interfere unless I think you're in mortal danger."

"So you'll be sitting around doing nothing the whole time," Cardin said, glowering.

"Sitting?" Mr. Corduroy grinned. "Of course not. What kind of Huntsman do you think I am?" He pointed upward. "I'll be in the trees."

With that, he leapt up to one of the lower branches and ascended into the canopy, still with all that armor strapped to him. For about half a second, he almost looked cool.

"Useless idiot," Cardin snarled, once he was gone. Jaune glanced nervously upward. It _looked_ like he was out of earshot, but still.

"I can't believe you fell for this," Cardin went on. "It's obviously just him trying to pawn off a job on us."

Jaune sighed. "It's good experience, right? Not like this is that hard." Even he wasn't too worried about twelve Beowolves. Not _that_ worried, anyway. Maybe he hadn't done well against the things during initiation, but in his defense he'd never even seen a Grimm at that point. Now he was... at least kind of prepared. He spared another glance at the treetops, where Mr. Corduroy was still watching them.

The pair of them trudged further into the woods. "I still can't believe Goodwitch is making us do extra missions," Cardin seethed.

Jaune let out a weak laugh. "Yeah, about that..."

Cardin stopped walking. _"What?"_

"It was my idea." Jaune shrugged. "We needed to be able to work together better. So, I figured starting with something easy would help."

"Seriously?" Cardin shoved him into a tree. "This is getting pathetic, Vomit Boy. I don't _want_ to be your partner. You're a pathetic, sniveling little idiot with nothing to contribute. Sticking me with carrying your dumb ass for an entire mission isn't going to help."

Jaune glanced up at Mr. Corduroy, who still hadn't moved, then groaned. "Cardin... I just want to talk this out, okay? Figure out how to work together."

Cardin aimed a kick at his shin. He stepped back out of reach. _"Cardin."_

"I'm _not_ working with you, for the last time!" He sneered. "I've got plenty of friends that _don't_ make me look twice as stupid just by standing nearby. So I really don't know why I'd want to be seen with you."

"Ermine aren't your friends," Jaune said. "They're keeping you around because they think you're funny."

Cardin laughed. "Really? They hang out with me because they like seeing first-years who aren't whiny wimps. That's it. And anyway, what about you? You follow Ruby and Pyrrha around like a lost puppy."

"They're my friends. Just like the rest of Brine and Raspberry, and Weiss and Blake. They _don't_ laugh behind my back."

"You sure about that?" Cardin smirked. "It _is_ pretty funny watching you flail around trying to use a sword."

"Yeah, I'm sure. Are you?" Jaune folded his arms. "Can you honestly say that _isn't_ the kind of thing Ermine would do?"

"They're _not_ laughing at me." Cardin's face began to redden with anger. "They're laughing at _you._ You're as miserable at fighting as Sky, and you're a _moron._ Just a complete waste of space. I don't even know how you _got_ here."

Jaune's hand went to his sword hilt and squeezed. He was breathing hard. Slowly, he turned around and marched off into the woods. Cardin laughed at his back, then shoved him off the path when he caught up. Jaune spun around and hit him in the jaw.

For a moment, they stood there staring at each other.

"I don't want to fight," Jaune insisted. "I seriously just want you to act like a human being instead of an Ursa in armor, but I guess that isn't going to happen."

Cardin snarled and drew his mace. "If you wanted me to beat the crap out of you, you could've just said so. It's not like we need to ship out to the ass-end of nowhere, I could do that in the courtyard." He smirked. "Maybe your 'friends' could watch. I'm sure they'd think it was hilarious."

 _"Yah!"_ Jaune charged forward and slashed at Cardin's head. His sword was knocked aside, and the next thing he knew he was on his butt on the ground, his head ringing.

"Ooh, scary." Cardin kicked him in the side. Jaune rolled to his feet, panting.

"I'm tired of you pushing me around," he snarled. "I'm tired of you acting like a jerk to Weiss and Blake when they've been carrying _both_ of us since _Initiation._ And I am _done_ being nice to you and hoping you'll get your head out of your—" Another blow, this one to his shoulder. He slammed into a tree, then shook his head, dazed.

 _"You're_ tired of _me?"_ Cardin snarled. "I'm tired of you whining at me. If you want to be leader, you've gotta have the _balls_ for it. You're nothing."

Jaune struggled to stay upright, gripping his sword and clenching his jaw. He saw the smirk on Cardin's face, and lost all coherent thought. He launched himself at his partner, sword swinging. They traded blows back and forth, until Cardin reached out just a little too far and overbalanced. Jaune slammed his shield in to the other boy's face. "Say that again!" he roared.

"With _pleasure._ You useless, hopeless, _worthless_ idiot." Cardin kicked out at his shin. Jaune grabbed him by the front of his armor and shoved his sword at him. His partner tripped over one of his legs and they both landed in a heap. Croacea Mors went one way, Cardin's mace went the other. The two of them started throwing punches, scrabbling around on the ground.

"If the two of you are done wallowing in testosterone," said Mr. Corduroy's voice from above them, "you might want to turn around."

Behind them, there was a long, low, rumbling _growl._

Both of them froze, with Cardin mostly on top of Jaune. He looked up and paled. They scrambled to their feet, turning to see six Beowolves lurking at the edge of the path. The one in the lead bared its teeth and huffed in a breath, sniffing the air. Then, it lunged.

Jaune and Cardin tripped over one another again, and then they were rolling on the ground and there were monsters looming over them. Claws closed around Jaune's leg. He yelped, kicked out with his other foot, then managed to snag the hilt of his sword as he was dragged backwards.

"Um, Mr. Corduroy?"

"You want to be Huntsmen? Figure out how to work together." Mr. Corduroy was sitting on a branch, kicking his legs back and forth. "This is a disgrace."

Cardin lunged forward, only for another Beowolf to step forward and slash at his face with one claw. The first monster adjusted its grip so that it was squeezing Jaune hard around the waist. He tried to breathe in, choking as he stared into its deep red eyes. Reaching out, he smacked it ineffectually on the mask. It roared in his face.

"Cardin!" He wheezed. "Drop—"

The Alpha threw him into a tree. He cried out, then slumped to the ground.

"I'm not your stupid underling."

Something in Jaune snapped. "Fine!" he yelled. "You're the leader now. I'll do whatever you tell me to—and if we kill all of these things, you can _stay_ leader when we get back to Beacon."

Cardin stared at him for a moment, then smirked. "Glad you're finally seeing sense, Vomit Boy."

A Beowolf bulled into him from the side, cutting off his celebration early. Jaune figured that in the absence of any orders, he should probably start trying to kill things. He swung at one of the ones to the left, then winced when it smacked his sword aside and tried to bite him. A quick shove with his other hand and his shield hit it in the face.

"Get over here and make yourself actually _useful,"_ Cardin snapped, wrestling with a Beowolf that had one end of his mace in its mouth. It snarled at him, then yanked the weapon away. Jaune jumped at it, slashed it across the back, then stabbed it in the side. Cardin reclaimed his mace and whirled around so that they were standing back to back.

At least, they _were._ Then Cardin was gone, running off with a war-cry. Something smashed into Jaune's back so that he was bowled over and ended up with a mouthful of dirt. He scrabbled blindly for his sword, which had slipped out of his hand as he fell. "Cardin," he croaked. "Maybe you could—"

 _"I'm_ giving the orders."

"Okay, but I could _really_ use—" Teeth clamped around the back of his neck. He could feel his Aura just over his skin, straining. "Cardin!"

"Just—just get up! I need—" Cardin grunted, then there was a loud _ripping_ noise. Jaune levered himself sideways so that the Beowolf lost its grip on his neck, then poked it in the eye. It reared back, he grabbed his sword, and then interposed his shield between himself and the monster. There were two more on his left, and one of them bent forward to try and grab his arm. He yelped and flailed at it.

A glance to the left showed Cardin was being flanked by two more Beowolves. Even as Jaune watched, one of them slashed at his leg and the other opened a huge rent in his sleeve. A flicker of brown passed over his skin, then disappeared.

Then, with a shuddering _crash,_ Mr. Corduroy landed in the middle of the clearing. He killed the Beowolves around Cardin in two clean swings of his sword, then turned to Jaune.

"You're not out of Aura yet," he said, sounding somewhat surprised. Jaune winced as one of the Beowolves started chewing on his calf.

"Yeah," he said, frantically shoving his sword in the general direction of the bone masks above him. "About that, would you mind..."

"Of course." Corduroy missed his first strike, but the next three ended a Beowolf apiece. He sheathed his sword behind his back, then heaved a sigh.

"Well. That may be the most embarrassing thing I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing."

"It's not my fault!" Cardin jabbed a finger at Jaune. "I barely gave him _any_ orders and he couldn't even manage that much!"

"True. You barely gave any orders." Corduroy rolled his eyes. "You decided that instead you should each just charge into battle, do whatever, and not bother with any teamwork at all. And between you... you killed one out of six Beowolves before being overwhelmed."

Jaune got shakily to his feet. Sure, he wasn't _actually_ injured, but a giant monster had been using his neck as a chew toy and that was _not_ okay. "So," he huffed out, panting. "I guess I'm still the leader, then."

"Seriously?!" Cardin scowled. "No one's a good enough leader to manage someone so useless."

"There's twelve in the pack, right?" Jaune folded his arms and stared Cardin right in the eye. "Plus we still have the Alpha left. Let's see if I do better."

Cardin narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"You follow every order I give you," Jaune said. "No whining about how I'm too useless to do it myself or how you have a better idea or _whatever._ We see if we can kill the other half of the pack ourselves. If we do... I'm your leader, and you keep acting like that in the field."

It took a while to get a response. Cardin paused to mull it over, then raised his chin and smirked. "Sure. Sounds like it'll be _funny."_


	21. Getting to Know You [6]

So Vomit boy actually had a spine.

Cardin kicked a stone off the path and watched as it skittered into the trees. Maybe this whole thing would be worth it just to put the idiot in his place, but being ordered around by some living noodle who couldn't even fight _rankled_. He kicked another stone.

"I must say," the Huntsman they were shadowing called out from above them, "this new method you two have developed for attracting the Grimm is brilliant."

"New method?" Cardin's eyes narrowed.

"Being so insufferable to one another that you draw every Grimm in the sector."

Jaune made a pathetic little half-laughing noise that made Cardin want to pick him up and shake him. He couldn't, though, because he was playing nice. Another kick, another pebble sent spinning into the forest.

They weren't talking. That was fine—boring, but probably better than listening to his 'leader' babbling. Cardin flicked his wrist, spun his mace around in his hand, then slung it over his shoulder. "This is taking forever."

"Trust me, they've sensed you already," the Huntsman said. "It's just a matter of communicating with one another and gathering into a pack. I'm guessing the other six were too impatient to wait for the rest. Happens with young Grimm."

Cardin rolled his eyes. It was like he was back in one of Port's lectures. With less storytelling, which was an improvement, but still. See Grimm, kill Grimm—that was all he needed.

"Come get some!" he shouted, kicking another rock. It struck something that let out a low growl.

"Oh." Jaune backed up a step. "I guess we found them."

"You _guess?"_ Cardin reached out to shove him.

Jaune turned around and glared. "Remember our deal."

Cardin was tempted to just punch him. But that could wait until _after_ the idiot dropped the ball and got himself demoted. Instead he just flipped his 'partner' the bird and turned his attention to the trees. Pairs of red eyes started emerging from behind trees and bushes. One pair was much higher up than the others.

"Right." Jaune looked around. "Let's do this."

Cardin moved forward towards where he could see the Alpha was. "Cardin, wait!" He took another step, turned, and scowled.

"If your grand strategy is having me do _nothing—"_

"My grand strategy is having you _not_ wander off into the middle of all of them." Jaune pointed to the spot next to him. "Stay."

"I'm not a fucking dog!"

"Cardin!"

Muttering darkly under his breath, Cardin moved so that he and Jaune were back to back. The Beowolves began emerging from the undergrowth, teeth bared. His Aura was mostly recovered, and Jaune's had apparently never broken in the first place. Probably because he'd been cowering under his shield the whole time.

He took a swing at the first monster that came at him, knocking it back. Then he tried to turn, only to bump shoulders with Jaune.

"Stay there, I'll move forward a bit."

Cardin's free hand twitched. It was getting harder to convince himself this bullshit would be worth it. He snarled and smashed the next Beowolf over the head, then kicked it. It shook itself, then jumped at him again. Another moved at the same time, and while he was putting the one down the other latched onto his arm. He tried to bash it over the head, but it kept yanking him around and making it harder to aim.

"I got it." Jaune moved around him and slashed the monster across the throat. It let go and started to dissolve, and Cardin gave the other boy a shove.

"I don't need _your_ help—"

Jaune rolled his eyes and for half a second Cardin wondered if one of their other teammates had possessed the guy somehow. Then he moved around so that they were back to back again.

Another two attacked him, but he managed to keep them both at bay with a sweeping blow with his mace. He stepped forward, swung left. Then right. Another step.

"Cardin!"

Something slammed into his back and bowled him over. It turned out one of the smaller Beowolves. Cardin managed to heave it off himself and get back to his feet, then swing at its neck and kill it. He turned around, then smirked at the sight of a pair of Beowolves playing tug-of-war with Jaune. One had a mouthful of his right glove, the other his left pant leg.

"Some help would be nice," Jaune said. Cardin stepped forward and slammed one of them into the ground. The other got a sword through the neck.

"Thanks."

"Any time you want to start pulling your own weight..."

"Okay, maybe I'll take that thank-you back."

Cardin returned to his spot behind Jaune, then realized with a shock that there were only three of the monsters left. The Alpha was just reaching them, having mostly watched while its pack was slaughtered. Now it approached the two of them, circling.

"Might want to be careful," the annoying Huntsman said. "One of you is a little low on Aura. I'm sure you can guess which."

"Oh, shut up," Cardin snarled. He was tough, had been since he was a kid. Jaune apparently had a ridiculous amount of Aura, which really just made him an excellent Grimm chew toy considering he couldn't swing a sword to save his stupid life.

"Okay!" Jaune tapped him on the shoulder. "I'll handle the Alpha, you get rid of the other two."

"Like you can take that fucking—"

"I said handle, not take. We can deal with it together after the other two are gone."

Cardin scoffed. Right, so he was going to have to do _everything._ He turned on the two Beowolves, managing to hit one in the foreleg before either attacked him. The other jumped on him, and he had to kick it away before he brought his mace around and crushed its skull. The other limped toward him and was dispatched. Easy.

Until it wasn't. Something slammed into him and then he and Jaune were both rolling on the ground, tangling up and losing both sword and mace. Cardin landed sprawled across both his partner's legs, with the Alpha getting ready to bite his head off.

"Duck!"

"No shit!" Cardin rolled to the left so that he was out of the way, then watched the monster collide with Jaune's shield. It snarled and snapped at him over the edge. "So much for _handling_ the Alpha."

"Yeah, well I wasn't expecting it to bat me around like a baseball!"

Then the Alpha pulled the shield down with one massive paw and tried to bite his head off. Jaune yelped and tripped over himself, then rolled to his feet with the shield still raised. Cardin started looking around for his mace. He found it, scooped it up, and charged the monster.

It met him halfway, crouched down, then lifted him up by the leg with its teeth. He swore, then felt himself launched through the air. For a moment he was flying, and then a tree hit him in the back and he landed face-down on the forest floor. He groaned and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.

"Cardin!" He shook his head, wincing. That had _hurt,_ and Jaune's annoying voice was not helping.

"Cardin you _really_ need to get up!"

He lurched to his feet, swinging his mace as the Beowolf lunged at him. He hit it in the side of the jaw and snapped its head to the side, but it kept on coming. Jaune was running at the pair of them with his shield held high.

"Climb!"

Cardin moved before he could think, reaching up and heaving himself up into the lowest branches of the tree he'd smashed into. The Alpha roared and jumped for him, and he had to climb another two branches before he was out of its reach. Then he glanced down at Jaune.

"Are all your plans this pathetic?"

"Shut up and listen!" Jaune winced and backed away when the Alpha turned its attention back to him. "When I tell you, jump out of the tree."

"What?"

"You're really low on Aura. Like, probably can't take more than a couple hits low. So I guess that makes me the bait."

 _"Bait?"_ Surely, even Jaune wasn't that much of an idiot.

Except now he was throwing rocks at the Alpha, and Cardin realized that he hadn't _picked up his fucking sword._ "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He edged along the branch a little, then stopped when it started making uncomfortable noises. Then he shrugged and leaned back against the trunk to watch. It wasn't like the moron could get himself killed with a Huntsman watching them, anyway.

Jaune advanced slowly, then circled around the Beowolf until he was between it and the tree. It growled, long and low, then bounded towards him. He backpedaled, tripped over a root, and landed on his ass.

"Nice moves," Cardin called out.

Sure, he could probably have gone down there and helped, but _Almighty Jaune_ had told him not to. Not his fault if that meant he got a show.

Jaune managed to get up, though not before taking a slash from the Alpha's claws across the face. Then he started backing up again, waving his shield around like a maniac. He clipped the Alpha's nose with it at one point, and it headbutted him into a tree.

"Still awaiting your command, _O glorious leader."_ Cardin snickered and tossed a twig down. It bounced off Jaune's head.

"Really not helping my concentration any!"

Jaune retreated so that he was right in front of the tree Cardin was standing in. He looked up, screwed up his face... and then let the Alpha bite down on his arm. He yanked it forward so that the monster's head was just a few feet away from the trunk of the tree and yelled, "Now! Aim for the back of the neck!"

Cardin gaped at him for a second—that had to be the dumbest thing he'd ever seen anyone do on purpose—and then jumped. He charged up his mace as he fell, then smashed it down on the back of the Alpha's neck. There was a _bang,_ a snap, and the beast went limp.

"Ow," Jaune hissed, shaking his hand. _"Ow._ Okay, that was _not_ fun and I am _never_ doing it again."

Above them, someone started clapping. It was a slow, sarcastic kind of clap, and was followed by the Huntsman dropping down out of the canopy. "Much better done," he said, clapping Jaune on the shoulder.

It took that long for Cardin to remember their bet. He'd been so caught up in the adrenaline and the thrill of killing the little bastards he'd hardly even thought about it.

"That's not—" he started to say.

"No take-backs," Jaune said.

"All you did was tell me to jump out of a fucking tree! How is that leadership?!"

"He's no General Gladiolus," the Huntsman agreed, "but the other half of the pack _is_ dead and I didn't have to lift a finger."

"Thanks?" Jaune shook his head. "Look, if you're going to go back on your word just because you're a sore loser or something—"

"Screw you!" Cardin folded his arms. "That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and it was _definitely_ luck."

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Don't care. You lost, I won, and I am _done_ having this argument. Are you going to play ball?"

Cardin snarled at him. "I'm not your underling."

"No." Jaune stood straight and lowered his shield. "You're my teammate. And _I'm_ still your leader. We made a deal, and you're going to respect that. Clear?"

For the first time, Cardin noticed that the arm he'd let the Alpha chew on was bleeding. Not heavily, but there were little spots of red showing through the bracer on his forearm. He glowered at his partner.

He hadn't thought he might lose. Not when the last fight had gone so badly, and when Jaune acted like such a useless moron. "That was all luck," he said.

"You can call it that if you want." Blue eyes bored into him. Jaune held out a hand. "Are you going to keep your word?"

Cardin worked his jaw, then grabbed the hand. Shook it. "Fine." His stomach churned at the word. It felt acidic, stinging and burning on the way out of his mouth. He glared, stuck his chin out, squared his shoulders. He wasn't some fucking stooge.

The whole thing was just luck. Just dumb fucking luck, and he wasn't going to take it lying down. He'd play along for now, maybe, because he wasn't the kind of coward that ducked out of a deal like that. It was just a matter of time until he got the chance to put Jaune back in his place.

The whole way back, he found that it was hard to look his leader in the eye.

* * *

"Of all the ridiculous—"

"—civic-minded, at least."

"Absolutely _inexcusable—"_

"—albeit rather effective."

"Ozpin." Glynda Goodwitch glared at their headmaster, then turned to survey the students in front of her. "You could have _died."_

Nora grinned sheepishly. "But... we didn't?" Goodwitch glared at her, and she slowly lowered her head to stare at her feet.

"It was my idea," Ruby said.

Yang stood a little straighter. "Hey, no it wasn't! Looking into Junior was _my_ fault!"

"I should have said something," Ren added. "Before we went inside."

Nora gaped at him. "But we all ran out ahead of you! I mean, I _always_ do that, it's not your—"

"As heartwarming as it is to see that you are all eager to take your share of the blame," Ozpin said dryly, "I believe it is safe to assume that the fault is just that— _shared."_

Goodwitch took a deep breath. "The four of you endangered yourselves and one another. You _brawled_ with _criminals_ in the middle of Vale. _Past curfew."_ Nora felt her heart sinking lower and lower with every word.

"With that said," Ozpin interjected. Or, well... _tried_ to interject.

 _"Not only that,"_ Goodwitch continued, cutting him off completely, "This is the second time _some_ of you have acted like this." Her gaze turned to Nora and Yang. "You are _Huntsmen and Huntresses._ You are _not_ vigilantes!"

"With that _said."_ Ozpin drew himself up to his full height. Goodwitch didn't interrupt him again. "You also worked together and protected one another. Not to mention the fourteen tons of raw Dust you managed to recover, most of it smuggled here from other kingdoms."

"Smuggled?" Ruby blurted out. "Not stolen?"

"Not precisely," Ozpin said, smiling. "It _is_ still very illegal, particularly considering the recent... _issues_ Vale has been having surrounding the sale of Dust. You've caught some unsavory individuals profiting off the misfortune of the city."

The four of them exchanged looks. Then they turned to Ruby, all silently wondering— _Should we tell him?_ She stared back, a bit shellshocked.

"Um," she said, after a moment. "We were wondering... if maybe this might be connected to Torchwick?"

"How so?" Ozpin asked. Nora narrowed her eyes at him. That smirk looked _way_ too knowing.

"Well, um... it's just that Torchwick is apparently gathering a bunch of Dust, and so was Junior. It seems... connectable."

"That is not your concern, _Miss Rose,"_ Goodwitch snapped. "What _is_ your concern is how exactly the four of you are to be punished for this... incident."

"But we caught a criminal!" Yang protested. Nora shuffled to the side and stepped on her foot. She'd seen _that_ look on authority figures before.

"Indeed you have," Ozpin said, still smiling cryptically.

Goodwitch glared at him. "Yes," she gritted out. "And in doing so, you apparently decided that a firefight in the middle of a warehouse full of volatile Dust was the optimal place to apprehend said criminal. And, of course, that _you four_ should investigate rather than calling in a teacher. Or—and I say this knowing that the very words themselves are meaningless to you—the _proper authorities."_

Nora traded another sidelong glance with Ren and the others. "Well," Ruby said, wincing when Goodwitch looked at her. "We just thought... um..."

"We are an institution that trains heroes." Nora had to fight down a sigh of relief when Ozpin started talking again. "Granted, this entire situation could have been better handled—and you _will_ be punished—but the fact remains that you have proven successful."

Goodwitch gave him another _look,_ a bit like the one Ren had worn the first and only time Nora had tried to do the cooking. He kept talking. "Of course, it is _just_ this sort of investigation that you will doubtless be responsible for once you graduate." He smiled warmly at them. "But _do_ try and wait for that to happen."

"Of course!" Yang replied, grinning back. Nora forced a sunny smile of her own, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the others doing the same. Goodwitch's eye twitched.

"The four of you will be receiving quite a lot of detention," she said, scanning each of their faces in turn. Ozpin gave her a look. "Two weeks," she gritted out. "One hour every Tuesday and Thursday evening." It looked like she really wanted to add something else, but in the end she just gestured sharply at the door. The four of them fled the room like it was on fire.

"Oh, man," Yang groaned as they exited, resting her hands on her knees. "I think she was trying to kill me with a glare."

Ruby nodded, eyes wide. "I've never seen her that mad before!"

"Or annoyed," Yang added, snickering. "Did you see her face when Ozpin started talking?"

Nora frowned. "It's _weird,_ though," she said.

"What is?" Ren asked.

"Ozpin. I mean, I get why Goodwitch is mad. Teachers are supposed to be like that when you do something crazy."

"We'd know," Yang said, holding up a fist. Nora bumped it.

"It's just... he's not even annoyed at us."

"Well, he was a lot like that when I met him," Ruby pointed out. "I fought Torchwick, and Goodwitch was really angry until he talked to me and offered me a spot in Beacon."

"I'm not complaining or anything," Nora insisted. "It's just _weird,_ that's all."

Very weird, actually. She remembered BRYN's punishment for going off into the Emerald forest—that had been over a month of Saturday detentions. It made what they'd gotten today seem kind of tiny by comparison, and maybe this was just her but she didn't think it had been that much crazier than their fight with Junior. Plus, _Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not_ Saturdays and Sundays, where the extra time spent cooped up in some classroom would keep them from doing what they were doing.

Ozpin hadn't punished the rest of BRYN and RSPR either. Sure, they hadn't run away like Sky, but... he didn't know they'd been helping, did he?

* * *

Ruby woke up feeling like she'd spent the night in a blender.

"Gah..." she wheezed, rolling herself over. She ended up on the floor, tangled up in blankets and making little groans of annoyance and pain.

"Are you okay?" Pyrrha gently picked her up and propped her against the bed.

Ruby blinked a few times. "Yep." She gave her teammates a shaky thumbs-up. "Just, y'know, sore in places I didn't think I had."

"I'm not surprised," Ren said. "Yesterday was... harrowing."

"And awesome." Ruby shook her head back and forth to clear out the cobwebs. "Don't forget awesome."

Pyrrha made a face. "I heard from Nora that you and Yang both nearly died."

"Pfft." Ruby waved a hand. "Nearly dying is, like, a rite of passage for our teams."

"Still." Pyrrha hesitated, then patted her on the shoulder. "I... don't like hearing you've been in danger."

"I'm _fine."_ Honestly, people kept acting like she was gonna blow over in a stiff breeze. "And anyway, we did it! We got Junior!"

"You... what now?" Sky winced when the other two looked at him. "I mean, um... I didn't really get the debriefing on what happened last night."

"I told you!" Ruby said indignantly.

"Well, yeah. You told me... while you had your face in your pillow. I think you fell asleep halfway through."

"...Um, okay. Short version is that Junior was working for Torchwick and we totally got him, even though one of them got away. But I think he was working for someone else, someone above Junior."

Sky nodded slowly. "So... the whole scouting thing—"

Pyrrha sighed. "It's not like we did much better. Especially when _someone_ thought it would be a good idea to fall off a catwalk."

Ruby cocked her head and looked from one to the other. Pyrrha was being weird at Sky, but that had been happening so often that it was mostly the new normal. Sky was staring at his feet.

"You know what, you guys?" They looked at her. "We need a day out in Vale. This time without any almost dying. Just as a team, right?"

"Don't we have... um... investigating to do?" Sky asked.

"It probably wouldn't be a good idea right now," Ren said. "Professor Goodwitch is angry enough as it is. Better to wait until things die down a little."

"Yeah." Ruby narrowed her eyes at them. "And you guys are still being weird."

Pyrrha and Sky both went scarlet, while Ren looked anywhere but at his partner. "See?! _Weird._ So let's go do something fun to celebrate being the youngest Hunters to take down a crime lord! Even if Junior is the lamest crime lord ever."

Sky wanted to hang out in the library, and Ruby suspected he was probably planning to do even _more_ research on the sly while she wasn't looking. Pyrrha thought that going to the gym counted as a fun activity to unwind after a giant battle and subsequent chewing out by the administration. Ren started eyeing his bed.

"We're going to the arcade!" Ruby declared. _Usually_ she liked leading democratically and everything, but... c'mon.

They went, though Sky wouldn't talk unless someone made him and Pyrrha was doing that thing she sometimes did where she smiled instead of actually joining the conversation. Ren was Ren. Ruby decided that if _something_ didn't change by the end of the day she was gonna lock all of them in a closet. She wasn't totally sure how that was supposed to help, but she'd heard Yang mention it before and she really was desperate.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" she called out, gesturing to the Arcade's front door. "Or, I mean... I guess Lady and Gentlemen since it's sort of weird to count myself. And I'm not really that much of a lady, so—"

"What game would you recommend?" asked Ren. Ruby really liked having him around when she started rambling.

"Um..." Ruby looked frantically between the three of them, thinking fast. "Pyrrha would probably like skee ball... for Ren, maybe Dance Dance Revolution? And, Sky... we could look around and try to find something?"

Ren cocked his head to the side. "Isn't the idea to bond over playing games together?"

"Yes!" Ruby hesitated. "Just, um..." _How do Yang and Nora do this stuff?!_ "I! Need. Um... to make sure we have a better sample of all the games we can play! I mean, if you guys don't go to arcades—"

"I've been a few times with Nora," Ren said. "Though this will probably be the first time where I don't get kicked out at the end."

Sky also raised his hand.

_Aw, c'mon..._

"Well, I've... never actually been to a place like this before." Pyrrha was turning a little pink. "It would be nice to have a little time to explore my options first. I wouldn't want to drag everyone into playing a game only to find out that I don't like it."

"Yeah!" Ruby paused. "Wait, no! Pyrrha, it's not dragging if we want to have fun with you."

There was a beat of silence.

"But, I mean, if you want to look around for a bit then that's great!"

Sky was giving her a really weird look, now. So were Ren and Pyrrha, actually.

"Can I just say I wanna talk to Sky for like ten minutes, and we can all pretend I did something super subtle and socially impressive to make that happen without anyone else noticing?"

Their faces cleared. "Oh," Sky said. Then he went pale. "Oh."

"It's nothing bad, I swear!" Ruby flailed her arms desperately. "It's just..." she glanced at Ren and Pyrrha. "Just... entertain yourselves! We'll be right back!" Then she fled into a mostly deserted corner in the maze of arcade games, with one—and only one!—of her teammates in tow. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"I should make Yang give me talking lessons," she decided.

Sky was shaking.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

He nodded. He wasn't looking her in the eye. "What... did you want to say?"

"Um." She scuffed her foot on the floor. The rug was covered in popcorn and soda stains. "Just that it wasn't your fault. Or... the first part was, and it kinda sucked, but I know you were trying."

Sky flushed right down to his Adam's apple. "You mean... before?"

"When we fought Torchwick, yeah." Ruby tried to grin, but it just wasn't there. "Look, I know everything's been kind of off since then, and... I don't like it. Pyrrha's mad at you, and I didn't even think she got mad at _anyone,_ and Ren's being too quiet, and you're upset and..." She flailed her hands again, because talking was _hard_ and she wasn't quite sure what she'd been trying to say in the first place.

"I'm sorry." He looked a bit like he might cry.

Ruby found herself tripping over her words a few times trying to reassure him. "I mean, wait! Just... not that it's off because of you, or... it's a little bit because of you and a little bit because of them and a little bit because... I'm not good at this. I came here to kill things with a giant scythe, I wasn't supposed to have to _talk_ to people, and I kind of thought I'd be on a team with Yang and she could just... do all the talking." She sighed. "So I don't... I don't know how to deal with stuff like this, because people are complicated and this whole _thing_ is complicated and... yeah."

Sky hesitated. "Well, you talked a lot about Pyrrha and Ren being mad at me. Are... are you mad at me?"

"What?" Ruby blinked. "No! I mean, it was... it was _bad,_ looking around and realizing you were gone. But it's not like you just left us to die like people keep saying. You called Goodwitch! I'd rather fight _five_ of Torchwick than call Goodwitch!"

"I called her because I didn't want to get _myself_ hurt," Sky protested.

"And she sent Oobleck! That whole thing saved our lives!"

"That's not the _point!"_ Sky sniffled a little and wiped his face on his sleeve. "Sorry. I just... I know. People keep telling me—Goodwitch, Pyrrha, your sister—"

"My sister?" Ruby froze. "When did Yang talk to you?"

If he'd gone pale _before,_ when she told him she wanted to talk to him, he was whiter than Weiss now. "I, uh... it's not... forget I said anything."

Ruby knew _that_ look. She'd been confronted with it way too many times not to recognize it. "What did she do?"

"It wasn't like that," he mumbled.

"Yes it was!" She folded her arms. "What did she do?!"

"...Nothing." His hand went up to touch his face.

_"Oh my god."_

"I said it was nothing!"

"Yang beat you up! That's just—I'm gonna—"

"No!" He shook his head vehemently. "It doesn't matter. She... she didn't do anything unfair."

_"Unfair?"_

He tapped his cheek, just under the eye, and his side. "Just... where you and Ren got hurt."

"That's what beating you up _means,_ Sky!" Ruby started pacing back and forth. "Ugh. I can't believe her!"

"She was right, though."

"No, she wasn't!" Ruby jabbed a finger at him. "Okay, first thing! If I wanted to beat you up, I could do it myself!" She paused. "I didn't mean it like—"

"Yeah, no, you definitely could."

"...Yeah. But second, you saved our lives!"

"I didn't. Oobleck did."

"Because you called him!"

"Because I was too much of a useless _coward_ to fight for myself!"

"Sky." Ruby flapped a hand at him. "Just... just stop for a second, okay? I'm not saying what you did was perfect, or the most heroic thing, or... or anything. I'm just..." she struggled for words. "It's like... like those little plastic floaties little kids use to swim."

"...What?"

"Shh! I'm trying to make a metaphor here. Like, they're not super aerodynamic or hydrodynamic or whatever, and maybe when you're wearing one you won't be able to swim as fast. But they're good. Because they make sure you don't go in over your head and drown. Like, say, if you're deciding to go and take down a super dangerous criminal, they'd want to go slower and make sure you have lots of information before you do anything crazy."

"So... I'm a plastic floaty thing."

"Yeah! And it's okay not to be perfect right now." She grinned. "I mean, look at us. Yang and Nora almost burned down a bar, Pyrrha's embarrassed about never going to an arcade before for some reason... _Alabaster..._ and let's not even get started on me and how I waited until _now_ to talk to you."

He started to protest, but she made sure to glare very sternly at him until he stopped.

"You're not perfect, Sky. None of us are. But... that's why we're teammates. We can help each other get better!"

There was a moment of stunned silence. _Oh, no! I shouldn't have compared him to Alabaster, what if he thinks I think he's like Cardin?!_

Then, "You're totally full of it."

"Bu—what?"

"I'm terrible at speeches, Sky. Look how bad I am at socializing, Sky. Lies, all lies!"

"Hey! I'll have you know, that's the least awkward I've ever been in my life!"

Sky grinned. "Well. I think you're pretty inspirational."

"Pfft, stop it!"

"A regular paragon."

"Am not!"

"A Beacon of hope, even!"

_"Sky!"_


	22. Getting to Know You [7]

"Just pretend you're Nora!" Ruby shouted.

"How is _that_ supposed to help me?!" Sky demanded, flailing desperately at the horde of monsters before him.

"Really?" Ren raised an eyebrow. "You're holding a hammer."

"But I'm not Nora! I don't have the upper body strength for this!"

"It's a toy hammer."

"And I'm a toy person!"

Pyrrha frowned. "What?"

"I don't know, okay?!"

Sky smashed the fake hammer down on one of the little _dastards._ It was a mole wearing a hard hat. Another popped up a few inches away in a suit and tie. He slapped it down, too.

"Five seconds," Ren said.

_"Not helping!"_ He smashed another two moles, each popping up in quick succession. Another one came and went before he had a chance to hit it. The buzzer rang.

Sky was sweating, embarrassingly enough. He hung his head and groaned.

"Well, you... um, you were close to the high score," Ruby offered.

Pyrrha winced. "It was an admirable try, but I'm not sure if twenty-two qualifies as close to forty."

"Depends how you're counting," Sky mumbled. "I mean, if you're thinking in terms of all possible numbers, then any two are 'close' compared to the sheer scale of infinity—"

"Okay, but you were like halfway there!" Ruby held up her hand. He high-fived it.

"On a game designed for kids," he added.

"So?"

Sky sighed.

"You did well." Ren held a straight face for a moment, then shook his head and chuckled ruefully. "Alright, you did terribly."

_"Thanks."_

"It's only a game, Sky," Pyrrha said, giggling.

"You know what? You're right." Sky grinned at the Whack-a-Mole game. "What next?"

"Well..." Ruby hesitated. "I think we proved that none of us can beat Ren at DDR."

"Conclusively." Ren didn't smirk, but Sky felt like it was implied.

"...And Pyrrha's not allowed near the pinball machine anymore." Sky eyed the massive roll of tickets in her hand.

"And I can't play anything, apparently," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "So we're fresh out of luck."

"Well, what games did you play when you came here before?" Ruby asked.

He hesitated. "Um... well, there's this maze thing I was pretty good at."

"See?" Ruby looked around. "We can totally do that! As soon as we figure out where it is."

"Um..." He knew where it was. He'd memorized a lot of odd things about that machine, actually, right down to the little dent on the side. "I'd rather not."

"Huh?" Ruby gave him a weird look. "Why?"

Sky glanced from her, to Ren, who was smiling at him for the first time in a while, to Pyrrha, who was still blushing a bit from the reference to the Pinball incident. "Never mind. I'll lead the way."

It was right where he remembered. No one was playing—most people tended to think it was boring at best and irritating at worst. He wasn't exactly most people, and had been drawn to it initially because there wasn't any wait time and his brother avoided the thing like the plague.

The rules were simple. A ball dropped from the top of the machine into a plastic maze between two glass panes. There were two buttons, each opening one set of gates and closing the other. Get it to the bottom without it getting stuck in one of the many dead ends, and you drowned in tickets. All or nothing—there wasn't any sort of middle prize.

Sky was rusty. He used to know the thing inside and out, but as it was his first play in a long time he got stuck somewhere around the middle. The other three were grouped around him, which felt weird. He used to ignore everyone else while he worked. "I used to call the ball Ariadne," he joked. Ren and Pyrrha both smiled, while Ruby just gave him a baffled look. The second try nearly made it through, only for him to miss one of the buttons entirely and lose again.

"This one's going through," he said. It was an old pattern—he'd tended to lose the first two whenever he came into the arcade. True to form, he won the third, fourth, and fifth attempts. He collected his tickets, stared at them for a while.

"Okay!" Ruby grinned, then got a better look at his face. "Um, _are_ you okay?"

"Fine."

"...So, prizes?"

Ren, who happened to be very good at one of the only games that didn't actually give out prizes, was gifted a green koosh ball courtesy of Ruby. He tossed it up and down, then from hand to hand. Pyrrha had arguably more tickets than the arcade had intended to be winnable in a single game, so she took a stuffed Ursa and donated the remainder to Ruby's balloon sword. Sky stepped up to the display case, scanning... then he grinned.

"That one." He pointed to a tiny plastic shield, modeled to look like Pyrrha's. She buried her face in her hands. As soon as the attendant gave it to him, he flipped it over and balanced it on his head like a hat. Pyrrha's mouth started twitching like she was trying hard not to laugh.

"I don't think that's its intended purpose," Ren pointed out.

Sky grinned. "Yeah, I should be using it to fend off the tiny Ursa." He hooked his ring finger through the handle on the back and faced Pyrrha's prize. "En garde!"

"That's a fencing term," Pyrrha reminded him.

He scoffed. "Please, this thing dreams about growing up to be a buckler one day."

They walked out of the arcade flushed with their success or, in Pyrrha's case, with the realization that the shield wasn't the only one of her weapons behind the display—the javelin form of Miló was worth over a thousand tickets.

"Is it bad that I kind of want one?" Ruby asked. Pyrrha went even redder.

"Why? I mean..." Sky gestured to the real thing.

"I'd be worried about Nora switching them out as a prank," Ren advised.

"Probably for the best, then," Pyrrha agreed. She was making a valiant effort not to look embarrassed. Sky winced.

"Um, sorry. About the shield." He looked down at the plastic thing hanging off his finger.

"It's quite alright." She smiled. "It's... refreshing, honestly, to see you joke about it."

"Oh. Um, okay."

They walked in silence for a while, meandering in the general direction of the airship station. The silence started out comfortable, but then—as silences tended to do around Sky these days—it got tense.

"Okay!" Ruby clapped her hands together, snapping them all out of their thoughts. "Now that we're all relaxed and everything, we should probably talk."

Sky made a face. He also noticed that Pyrrha and Ren looked like they wanted even less to do with this conversation than he did. Ruby was on a mission, though. "I tried doing this the subtle way, but let's be honest here. I'm bad at talking, Sky's bad at talking, you guys are bad at talking—" She gestured at Ren and Pyrrha. "So... are you still mad?"

Pyrrha hesitated. "A little."

Ren shook his head.

Sky looked down. It wasn't as bad as he'd thought, all around."

"To clarify," Pyrrha started. "I don't... dislike you."

"Right."

"You're still a friend. I'm just... It's..." she trailed off.

"I... yeah."

Ruby gestured at them to keep going.

"I'm sorry," Sky said. "About... everything. I want to make it up to you guys, and—"

"Wait a moment." Pyrrha stared at him. "Is _that_ why you've been acting so reckless lately?"

"Um..."  
  


"Sky!" The stare turned into a glare. "I might be a little upset, but I don't want you getting hurt!"

"Oh." He winced. "Well, getting _hurt_ wasn't the goal, so much as just... not running away again."

Ren cleared his throat. "Sometimes retreat is the best option." He met Sky's eyes, his gaze even. "As long as it's discussed, and we're retreating together."

Sky didn't have a response to that.

Eventually, Ren gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. "I know that not everyone can be like Nora. I even know how hard it can be to do the right thing in the face of fear. And... you _are_ trying."

He nodded frantically. "Yeah! I'm going to do better, I swear."

The other two were a little hesitant. A little wary. They were also very much _still there._ They'd talked, and he'd apologized properly instead of cowering, and... it was fine.

"You're right," he said, turning to Ruby. "We definitely should've done this sooner."

* * *

Yang was a little worried when Nora called the two of them and Russel together while Dove was in the library to, "Enjoy having my heart rate below two hundred for once." She was a _lot_ worried when Russel suggested finding a Faunus student—namely Velvet—and locking Dove in a classroom with her or something.

"I know we have a reputation," she said, "but that's a bit much."

"Plus it'd be dumb to start our plan to make sure _Dove_ won't be mean to Faunus by being mean to a Faunus," Nora added.

"What's the worst that can—" Yang put a hand over his mouth.

"Okay." She sighed. "I'm starting to not like the idea of involving Velvet at all."

"But it _is_ the best way to do this kind of thing, isn't it?" Nora asked. "I mean, we just have to show him that there are Faunus out there that are awesome."

"Well... yeah." Yang hesitated. "It's just that... well, for one thing we need to make sure he won't pick on her."

Nora frowned. "I mean, it's Dove. He only really insults Russel, and that doesn't count." Russel spluttered something unintelligible.

"We _also_ need to make sure that we're not going to accidentally confirm something he thinks." Yang shrugged helplessly. "I mean, Faunus vary in personality just like people, right?"

"And sometimes people are assholes." Russel nodded sagely.

Nora scrunched up her face and frowned. "Velvet seems really nice, though."

"I'm just saying we should probably talk to her first," Yang said, "to make sure she's okay with it and that she and Dove won't end up fighting or anything."

That was how they'd ended up ditching Dove and RSPR for lunch as tactfully as they could. It wasn't hard, because Ruby had decided to drag her team with her to an arcade. They just had to convince Dove that they were doing something totally, one-hundred percent wholesome and nonviolent. Judging by the look on his face, he didn't believe them but couldn't muster the energy to argue.

All three of them walked into the cafeteria at the same time as they always did. Velvet was at her usual table—she wasn't alone, though. ERMN was sitting just a little too close for comfort and occasionally turning to sneer at her. Yang's misgivings about their plan evaporated.

"Hey!" she called, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Don't you four blockheads have anything better to do?"

Only one of them looked up. He was red-haired, with deep black eyes and a sharp smirk. "Oh, look. More children."

"Buzz off." Nora glared at them, hands on her hips.

"Aw." Another one, this one a brunette, smirked and propped his head up on one fist. "Aren't they cute."

"Ignore 'em." Russel grinned, showing teeth. "If they start something, even Goodwitch can't blame us for fighting back."

Yang opened her mouth to say something—because she wanted to punch them, but she wasn't at _all_ sure about Goodwitch not blaming them as long as they didn't start it—but she noticed that Velvet had tensed up even _more_ and desisted. "Um, hi!" She turned to the girl, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. "Do you mind if we sit here?"

A pair of wary brown eyes flicked in her direction, then back down to the table. "No. And... thank you."

Yang smiled reassuringly. "No problem."

"Consider it insurance," Russel added. "This way if a fight breaks out we can kick their—"

"Or," Yang suggested, "We could just sit here and talk like normal people and not start a brawl in the cafeteria?"

Russel stared at her like she'd just grown a second head. "Should I be worried about fever? Demonic possession?"

Nora poked him in the shoulder. "Russ, maybe Velvet doesn't _want_ to start a fight?"

"Velvet can speak for herself." Her shoulders were hunched, and she was picking at her food with dull, mechanical motions.

"Sorry," Yang said. "We're just, uh... well, we'd kind of figured things would get better while Cardin was gone but..."

"He's not really the problem," Velvet pointed out.

"Yeah, he couldn't threaten a hamster." Russel smirked. "I mean, he _thinks_ he could, but..."

Her expression shifted, growing even more guarded. "Was that supposed to be a joke?"

There was a beat of silence. Russel's mouth popped open.

"That look better mean no," Nora said, waving her fork in his general direction.

"Of course it's a no!" He rubbed his temple. "I'm not a _complete_ moron, you know."

"Right." Velvet went back to her food.

Yang decided that they'd probably crashed and burned enough for one day. "If you want us to leave, we totally can. Just... um, we really don't mean anything bad. We just wanted to make sure you're okay, since we do... _sort of_ know Cardin."

"You do?"

"He's Yang's sister's friend's partner," Nora explained.

"Yeah, Jaune dragged the whole team into the woods to try and knock some sense into him," Yang added. "That's why they aren't here right now. We figured we could help, at least while Alabaster isn't here to keep him and his, uh, 'friends' in line."

"That, and one of our teammates might need a reality check." Russel shrugged.

"...What?"

Yang gently rested her head on the table. "Sorry. Again."

"It's my partner," Nora explained. "He's... less angry than I thought he would be about the whole thing with Cardin. Not exactly mean, but he said some things that made me worry. We wanted to help him maybe learn more, not be so... y'know."

Velvet stared at them for a solid fifteen seconds. "You want me to fix your discriminatory partner?"  
  


"Yes?"

  
Yang glanced over at ERMN. "Just to be super clear, though—this is a totally optional, very insane plan that you don't have to go along with. We can still hang out here to keep Ermine away, or leave, whichever you want. No strings attached."

"Hang on." Velvet squinted at them. "You're the first-years who remodeled Port's classroom with an airship, aren't you?"

"That's us!" Nora beamed proudly.

Velvet cracked a smile. "I saw the damage." She looked down again, fiddling with her fork. "I just... I don't think I can do that."

"Oh." Nora's face fell.

"I know you're trying to be helpful." Velvet stood, collecting all her food and trash onto a plastic tray. "I'd even say that meeting someone who challenges outdated stereotypes can help people grow out of them. But I get enough of people like that without subjecting myself to it on purpose. I'm _not_ a case study, and I _don't_ want to have to represent my entire species just so that one human can figure out that we aren't animals." She took a deep breath, then smiled. It looked fixed. "Thank you for standing up to Ermine, and I wish you luck with your teammate."

She left the table. Yang groaned and buried her face in her arms. "We're all going to need Jerk Jars."

They decided to head back to their dorm after that—one of ERMN even had the nerve to tell their backs, "You'd better run!" which meant that Yang had to drag Russel behind her for a few steps to avoid a brawl.

Then, about halfway between the cafeteria and the room, Ruby popped up next to them. "Hi!" she said, grabbing Yang by the wrist. "I'm borrowing you."

Before Yang could protest—not that she would have, but it would've been nice to have the option—Ruby tugged her down a hallway seemingly at random. Then she _glared._ Yang shifted awkwardly. She wasn't used to seeing Ruby genuinely angry, let alone having that be directed at her. Not only that, but she hadn't even done anything. _Why...?_

"You hit Sky."

_Oh. That._

"Yeah, but—"

"You know he probably saved our lives, right?"

"That's not the point!" Yang gritted her teeth. "He ran off!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's okay to beat him up!" Ruby ran a hand through her hair—a habit picked up from Jaune? "I can protect myself. And I _like_ Sky, okay? He's my friend. I don't want you guys fighting, and I definitely don't want him to be scared of you."

"I know, but—"

"But nothing!" Ruby started pacing. _"I_ get to decide if I'm mad about that. And I'm not!"  
  


"Why _not?_ He just ran off and left you, like—" she cut off midsentence. Ruby's expression shifted from a scowl to a frown. Then she bit her lip.

"Oh."

Yang looked away, feeling... raw. Maybe a little exposed. "It's not like that," she grumbled. "It's because he screwed up and _you_ would've had to pay for it. It's _normal_ to be mad at someone who does that."

Ruby gave her a _look._ Not an angry look, but more of a _you're fooling no one_ look. Yang was pretty sure she'd learned it from Uncle Qrow. "I know that's kind of a... um..." She didn't _say_ weak spot, but Yang felt her stomach twist anyway. "You still shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah." She'd had that sense, in a vague sort of way, even when she was doing it. "I'm sorry."  
  


"Good." Ruby hugged her around the middle. Just like that, all was forgiven. It was one of the things about her little sister that she loved and feared the most. Yang ruffled her hair. "Hey!" she yelped, indignant.

"Can't help it." Yang mustered a grin. "You make such a good target."

"You're the _worst."_

* * *

"This is probably a lost cause."

"Stay still." Blake surveyed her partner, who was standing with her arms folded and tapping one foot impatiently. Strands of white hair were escaping from under her balaclava, and her ice-blue eyes were narrowed with impatience. Her jacket was gone—too easy to identify, and Blake couldn't shake the mental image of the snowflake on the back being used as a _literal_ target—but she still looked very much like a Schnee.

"Maybe if we put something over your scar?"

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Yes, clearly it's the scar that's the problem."

"I know, I know." Blake ran a hand through her hair. "I don't want you getting recognized." Weiss gestured at herself, one eyebrow raised.

"Right." Blake sighed. "Fine."

"At least _you're_ fairly inconspicuous."

It was true. Her ears weren't totally hidden—you could tell that they were there by the bumps at the top of her head. Between that and her eyes the White Fang would probably figure out that she was a cat Faunus. Otherwise, her face was obscured and she'd made sure to cover her symbol anywhere that it appeared. She'd also been a bit... reclusive in her later days in the White Fang. Random grunts wouldn't recognize her even without all the extra effort. With the disguise, members that had been around since she was one of them likely wouldn't either.

Adam wouldn't be fooled for a second.

Weiss was giving her an odd look. "Blake, are you okay?"

"Yes." She was breathing a little faster than normal. It took an effort to slow down.

"We can still just—"

"No." Blake made a last-ditch attempt at tucking some of the incriminating white hair back under the balaclava. "I have to know what they're doing."

Weiss batted her hand away. "Then stop _fussing._ I'll be fine."

"I know."

"Honestly, if the idiots Torchwick had helping him are any indication, we have nothing at all to worry about."

"They aren't."

"What?" Weiss stared at her.

"They aren't any indication." Blake glanced to their left, in the general direction of the White Fang base. "We—They have Aura users. Real ones."

"Like you."

"...Yes."

Weiss sighed. "I'd prefer if they were all incompetent, but I suppose we'll have to make do."

"Right." Blake pulled out her scroll. The location broadcasting feature had been off since she'd left her sector of the forest. She stood there, staring at the screen, waiting. After a moment, it lit up with Camille's picture.

"Blake. Status?"

"Still alive, no sign of any Grimm."

The call ended. Seconds later, Weiss received and answered her own check-in. They both powered off their scrolls.

"One hour," Blake murmured. "Probably better to aim for forty-five minutes just in case."

"I know."

"We go in through the south entrance. It's less well-guarded, and there should be some offices nearby we could search."

"Blake, _I know._ Let's go."

They went.

Weiss wasn't trained in stealth, but she managed to be reasonably quiet as they approached the building. It was out of the way—part of the reason the White Fang had taken it over. Once upon a time it had been a logging outpost, but even as close to the city walls as it was it had problems with Grimm incursions. It was also near a lot of smaller villages where the White Fang could find supplies and recruits. It had been their safe haven in Vale, where they sent their injured to convalesce and their newest members to train.

It looked worse than she remembered. Ivy had grown up over everything, and the walls were crumbling. That had been the goal, back then—the more empty and overgrown it looked, the less attention people would pay to it. They stuck to the shadows of the woods behind the complex for a while, observing. Well, Blake was observing. It was dusk, and she wasn't sure how well Weiss' human vision was working at the moment.

"Two guards," she whispered. "That I can see, anyway." She could see quite a lot, considering they were at the edge of the tree cover and, since there hadn't been any logging in the area for over two decades, the edge of the tree cover was only about twenty feet from the wall.

"Where?"

Blake pointed. One on top of the wall, slouching against it. Another next to the gate.

Weiss grimaced. "We won't be able get through there without them seeing."

The woman on the wall glanced in their direction, and Blakepulled the two of them down behind a bush. "What do we do, then?" Weiss asked. "Is there another entrance?"

"Two," Blake replied, "But both will be better guarded." She paused, scanning the building. "We'll have to go up and over."

"Over the wall? They'll probably notice that."

"Not if we time it right." Blake gave Weiss' arm a tug and led her a little to the right. The guard on the wall sighed and leaned her head back. The one by the gate—a man with curling ram's horns—kept staring directly ahead.

"We can't use my glyphs," Weiss pointed out. "Too much light and noise."

At that moment, the man at the gate yawned hugely and turned to his right. In the instant his attention was diverted, Blake moved. She and Weiss sprinted up to the wall, moving as silently as possible. Her partner hopped up on her hands and jumped, landing safely on the other side. She followed, hoping desperately that the clone she left behind would evaporate before anyone noticed it.

Inside the walls it was eerily silent. Blake glanced left, then right. There were two buildings. One seemed unguarded—that was where they'd gone to spar, there wouldn't be anything in there. The other was not. A masked face turned towards them. He was tall, holding a pitchfork. Two tusks protruded from under his mask.

"Schnee," he breathed. _And Weiss' disguise lasts all of four seconds. Great._

Before he could raise the alarm, Blake darted forward and wrapped her ribbon around his throat. He flailed at her for a moment, then dropped. She knelt down to check his pulse.

"Nice to know all the effort of hiding my identity wasn't a complete waste," Weiss grumbled.

Blake bit her lip, glancing around for somewhere to put the unconscious grunt. There was nothing, and with his bulk they probably wouldn't be dragging him anywhere quickly. She snatched his mask, ripped off her balaclava and put it on.

"What on Remnant are you doing?!"

"Sorry." Blake didn't look up. "This way they'll be confused when they first see us. Gives us more time."

"...Right."

Weiss was staring at her ears. Blake chose to ignore it, opened the door and stepped inside.

"Oh." A woman's voice. She turned, came face to face with a girl that looked younger than her. "Who are—" Weiss followed her into the room, caught the look on the girl's face, and drove the hilt of her rapier into her diaphragm. She bent over, gasping, and Blake hit her on the back of the head.

  
Quietly, so that even Weiss probably didn't hear her, she whispered, "I'm sorry."

Then, louder, "We should hurry up. Someone's going to notice us pretty soon."

"Obviously."

Blake slipped into the nearest office with Weiss hot on her heels. They started opening drawers, rifling through papers. Blake recognized a mug on the desk— _Think Pawsitively._ She picked it up and placed it out of the way, then paged through the pile of documents underneath it. Most were memos.

_Pickup @ Gunderson. Bring 5._

_Tex: Relocate to MG. Bring canned food._

Blake tucked those top two papers into her pocket and turned her attention to a corkboard on the wall. Written across the top, in bold red letters: **WHY WE FIGHT.**

It was mostly newspaper clippings. Headlines jumped out at her.

_Faunus woman assaulted in downtown Vale, perpetrators not found_. Scrawled across the article in that same red lettering, **Did you even TRY?**

_SDC +1.05%,_ **Bought with blood.**

There was more. Index cards ( **Make it stop!** ), pictures (A smiling young woman with curly brown hair, freckles, two fox ears and an X painted over her face in that same red marker), a map (Menagerie outlined in red, with a label, **Our cage** ). A portrait of Weiss' father.

Blake turned away. "We should go. Look somewhere else." Weiss followed her gaze, flinched, then nodded.

They walked out into the hallway and froze. Someone was kneeling beside the downed guard. He turned around in surprise, opened his mouth—Weiss and Blake moved at the same time, knocking him out and sending him sprawling. They moved further down the hallway, peering through each door in turn and finding more offices. Only one was occupied, but the man inside was asleep at his desk and didn't stir when the door opened. He wasn't wearing a mask, and Blake could see that he was drooling a little on the paperwork in front of him. One wolf ear twitched as the door swung closed again.

Blake was starting to get anxious. She grabbed Weiss' arm, jogged down the hall, turned the corner, and then skidded to a halt. There was another door, this one guarded by three masked Faunus. The middle one had bull's horns—he was blond, though. Her heartbeat slowed. He started at the sight of them, then drew a longsword. Blake could tell from his stance that he, unlike some of the others they'd encountered, knew what he was doing.

"Intruders," he shouted. Then he did a double take. _"Schnee."_ The other two were armed, as well—the woman to his left carried an axe that looked like it might have originally belonged to the logging company, and the man to his right had a gun.

Weiss put up a glyph. A few bullets bounced off it, and the two with melee weapons advanced. "I'll take the one in the middle," Blake said, then leapt for him. He stared at her through the eyeholes of their masks. His were a warm brown.

"Traitor," he spat. For a moment she wondered if he'd recognized her, but he hadn't called her by name. He'd only seen her ears, and that she was protecting Weiss.

She blocked his first strike, then ducked a punch with his off-hand and laded a shallow scratch across his right shoulder. Nothing happened—he had Aura. Blake had two weapons to his one, though, and he wasn't very good. A quick glance showed her that Weiss was easily handling the one with the axe, and that the one with the gun was hesitating, worried about hitting his comrades.

Blake traded blows with her own opponent for few seconds. Then she slid to the right, leaving a clone behind her as she went. He charged forward and made a noise of dismay when his sword went right through it. She came up behind him and landed three blows. Head, shoulder, back. The last knocked him down, and his Aura flickered out. A kick to the head and he went still.

Even as she turned around, Weiss was already freezing the woman with the axe to the wall. She struggled and swore, but the ice held.

The gunman crumpled like tinfoil when the pair of them attacked him. He was left slumped against the wall, his fox tail splayed out behind him. Blake looked at his brown hair and thought of the girl in the photograph.

She started hearing voices in the distance. Shouts of alarm. "We don't have much time."

"After you, then." Weiss gestured at the door. "If they're guarding it, it must be important."

The door opened—with a bit of persuasion from Weiss' rapier and a lot of earth Dust—and the pair of them entered a room that Blake didn't recognize. It must have been added onto the complex recently. The roof was low, but the far wall was nearly thirty feet away. Every available surface was filled with crates bearing the SDC logo. Or rather, _almost_ every surface. There were shelves near the back that were instead loaded with boxes about the size of a car engine, covered in wires and tubes.

Weiss froze. "Those are bombs."

"What?!"  
  


"Dust bombs. More explosive potential than raw burn Dust, and more controlled." There were a lot of them, at least a dozen.

That wasn't even the strange thing. A hole had been dug near the far end of the room, right into the floor. There was a ladder bolted to one side, and picks and shovels and more complex excavation equipment lay abandoned around the entrance. Blake took a step towards it, then stopped dead in her tracks, listening.

Behind her, she heard the sound of something revving up. She and Weiss both whirled around and came face to face with a living mountain. He was taller even than Cardin, broad in the shoulder, with his muscular arms bared to show off a tattoo wrapped around one of them. His hair was dark, cropped short. In his hand, he held what looked like the bastard child of a broadsword and a chainsaw.

Blake knew him.

She backed up a step, gripping Gambol Shroud tighter. He cocked his head. His eyes were invisible behind his bone mask, the slits narrower than the standard issue that Blake was currently wearing. For a moment, he just stood there and stared. Then he spoke, his voice a bass rumble.

"Adam's little shadow. We've been looking for you."


	23. Getting to Know You [8]

_"Adam's little shadow. We've been looking for you."_

Weiss glanced over at Blake. The expression on her face was hard to read—somewhere between surprise and dread. She readjusted her grip on her rapier and brandished it at the giant—the giant with the _chainsaw,_ which she definitely wasn't a fan of.

He dragged it against the ground in a little half-circle in front of him, taking small, languid steps forward. "Disappearing without a trace, only to come back now? With... _that."_ He spat the words.

"I don't much like your tone," Weiss snapped, when it became clear that Blake was too shocked to speak.

He ignored her entirely. "What? Nothing to say?" Another step forward.

Blake edged backwards. "Not to you," she said quietly.

The chainsaw rose to chest-height—well, chest-height for _them._ More like waist-height for him. "I'll be sure to give him your head."

"I can see why you left," Weiss said. His head whipped towards her, and he lunged forward with an enraged roar.

She made the mistake of trying to block the first blow and ended up skidding almost five feet backwards, her hand jarring as the teeth of the weapon rattled against her blade. He laughed, swung again. She ducked under that, and then Blake shot him in the shoulder. The way he shrugged it off meant he _definitely_ had Aura, and while he wasn't fast he wasn't exactly slow, either.

"A Schnee and a traitor, both in one day." He swung for her waist. She used a glyph to skip back and out of the way. His follow-up she deflected, wincing only slightly at the force and the vibration of the blow. He was monstrously strong, a bit like Cardin if Cardin could hit the broad side of a barn. Blake rushed at him, and he swung his chainsaw in a vicious arc to get her to back up.

"Has it even occurred to you that this is _exactly_ what we've been fighting for?" Blake asked. "Cooperation?"

"Subjugation," he snarled, shoving the chainsaw through one of her clones. Weiss flinched at the sight. "You're willing to be a lapdog, just like your father."

Weiss' head snapped up from where she was trying to draw a haste glyph. "Wait, wha—"

The chainsaw blade came down at her from above, and she had to roll to the side and abort the glyph. "Your father? What?" With how rarely Blake talked about her parents, Weiss had assumed that they were dead. Then again, she supposed that she ought to know there were plenty of other reasons for family not to come up in conversation.

"Like _this_ is going to help?!" Blake gestured at the rows of bombs. "What are you planning to do? Who are you planning to _kill?"_

He landed a kick to her ribs and sent her flying back into one of the crates. "Blake!" Weiss lunged forward. A column of ice spikes slammed into him, and he had to swing his chainsaw to free himself. Blake got to her feet, shaking her head as if to clear it. "Less debate, more focusing on not getting bisected!"

"What's wrong, little girl?" His face was invisible behind the mask, but she could picture his sneer. "Worried about your little pet?" He turned to Blake. "You know that's all you'll ever—"

Weiss spun her rapier and tossed a fireball at him. He swore and dived to the side, landing in an awkward sprawl and batting at one shoulder on his uniform that had started to smoke. "Enough of the melodramatic taunting," she snapped as Blake came up behind him. She kicked at his hand, trying to get him to drop the chainsaw. He didn't oblige. Instead he straightened up and swung it at her, only to meet another clone.

Outside in the hallway, Weiss could hear voices. She turned just in time for four more masked Faunus to burst into the room, guns already blazing. A hasty glyph kept her and Blake outside of the line of fire, but then the giant with the chainsaw came at them from the other side and her concentration slipped. A shot grazed her cheek.

It was only a moment's distraction—a glance to the gun-toting morons to shoot some more fire at them. She was ready for an attack from the giant as soon as she turned around, and she was right—but he hadn't tried to hit her with the chainsaw. Instead he pulled one of the crates of Dust off one of the shelves and threw it at her with two hands. She yelped and dove out of the way, skidding to a halt at the edge of the hole in the floor. "Are you insane?!" she demanded. "You'll blow us all to—"

He tackled her. For a moment they were free-falling, and then there was a sharp _crack_ and she found herself half-sitting, half-kneeling on one of his legs. His head was tilted forward, and judging by the way it rested on a bit of stone on the dirt floor, he'd landed on it on the way down. Weiss got up and pointed her rapier at him as he started stirring. "That was idiotic."

The mask had tilted just a little, exposing part of his mouth. He was baring his teeth. You could call it a grin, but it wasn't a happy expression—it was mocking. Feral, even. "No way out from here, Princess," he grunted, getting to his feet.

Weiss glanced around and realized that he had a point. They had landed in a passageway made of packed earth that merged seamlessly into solid stone farther on. It sloped gently downwards for about thirty feet, growing darker all the while, before it met a concrete wall that had a hole carved into it. The opening was pitch-black. Right—Faunus night-vision.

He took a step forward, chainsaw humming. Weiss looked over her shoulder again. There wasn't much room to maneuver—the tunnel was only about four feet wide, and he had to bend quite a bit at the waist to fit. Her weapon was slimmer and used more for thrusting, so _theoretically_ this was to her advantage, but...

The chainsaw swung from wall to wall, its teeth biting into a wooden support beam and eating away a notch almost an inch deep before he pulled it away again. Weiss backed up, another step towards the dark. She could try to force him back, but he was at least three or four times her weight and could afford to let her hit him a few times if it meant getting close enough to grapple. Maybe if she went back to the room above? But he was still standing at the foot of the ladder, and she didn't like her odds for getting around him. How was she supposed to—

A pair of boots descended from above, landing on each of his shoulders. He pitched forward, cracked his head a second time on the wooden supports around the entrance to the tunnel, then braced his arms against the wall to keep himself upright. Blake managed to grab the ladder as she fell off his back, turning a graceless tumble into an easy hop to the ground.

He turned around. Weiss decided to aim for the red wolf's head on his back—it was such a wonderful target, after all. He staggered forward. Blake took the opportunity to land a slash across his mask. He lunged at her with the chainsaw, and she grabbed hold of the ladder so that she could pull her feet up. The blade sank into the metal bars inches below the heels of her boots, shearing off the bottom five feet. Then he whirled around and bullrushed in Weiss' direction.

She took three steps back, remembered the certain doom of wandering into a tunnel where only her opponent could see, then held her sword out straight in front of her. "Blake! I really hope you have a—"

He batted her rapier aside and took another few steps. She retreated, bit her lip, then switched to energy Dust and made a desperate swipe for his chest. It landed, and he was stunned for a moment.

Behind him, Weiss saw Blake look up. Three of the four other White Fang gunmen dropped down into the pit, one after another, and it occurred to her that having a dodgy fighting style and tiny, cramped corridors did _not_ mix.

Weiss glanced at the wooden beams holding up the ceiling, then at the giant between her and her partner. She needed to get around him. With that in mind she twirled her rapier and summoned a glyph under his feet. He looked down just in time to be launched into the roof of the passageway, bounce off, and land in a heap. She sprinted forward, planted a foot on the small of his back, then tripped when he tried to get up. He reached out and grabbed her ankle.

A quick glyph held his arm in place, but he was pushing against it and Weiss was just a _little_ distracted by the pitched battle going on not ten feet in front of her where Blake was dealing with the three goons—two, now, one had just been knocked head-first into the ladder.

The glyph spun, faltered, then shattered. Weiss jabbed him in the wrist with her rapier. He didn't let go. There was a brief scuffle, wherein Weiss decided that getting away from him _right now_ was probably her best strategy and directed a flurry of blows at his face and throat. He shifted, pulling her foot up so that she lost her balance. Another glyph underneath him sent the pair of them down in a tangle.

Both were distracted when a gunshot went off a few feet away. There was only one White Fang member left in the little corridor, and Blake had him pinned to the wall by his throat and gun hand. Then she glanced up, released him, and leapt back. A shelving unit crashed down into the space she'd just occupied. The fourth gunman came down after it.

"Don't damage the Dust!" The man with the chainsaw roared. Weiss wriggled free while he was distracted, kicking him in the head with one heeled boot for good measure. She backed up, wincing when she realized that he was still between her and Blake—and the exit. Then again—Blake was also between _him_ and the exit, and he couldn't retreat with Weiss in front of him.

He seemed to realize this and charged with his chainsaw swinging. Weiss skimmed backwards, casting an anxious glance towards the dark, gaping tunnel behind her. If she were driven back there, would there be enough space to get around him?

Another blow nearly caught her, and she had to dance backwards to avoid it. A glyph redirected his second swing, and she landed a blow across his stomach. Weiss was breathing hard. Her Aura dipped when he threw a heavy overhead blow at her and she had to block with her rapier. Behind him, Blake dispatched the gunman and started slashing at his back. _He can't keep this up long._ Suddenly his head cocked to the side. He reached out and touched the chainsaw to the wall.

There was a long, high, piercing _squeal_ of metal on stone. Weiss stumbled backwards with her hands over her ears, screwing her face up in agony. If this was hurting _her,_ what about—

Then the noise didn't matter anymore, because her head felt like it had just been blown open. She reeled, Aura fizzling out, and turned just in time to see a glint of steel behind her. There was a young woman, maskless and freckled, brandishing a filthy shovel.

Her thoughts were muddled, but one thing was clear—she didn't want to be caught between two opponents. Weiss couldn't have gotten past the chainsaw-wielding maniac, but she had rather more luck with the girl with the shovel. A hard shove and she was out of the cramped passageway, tripping over something in the near-pitch darkness and stumbling into empty space. She whirled around with her rapier brandished in front of her, her ears straining for any hint of more White Fang members. In this state a shovel constituted a real and present danger, and she couldn't help acknowledging the irony of a Schnee being murdered with a mining implement.

The giant followed hot on her heels, along with the worker. Their silhouettes seemed larger-than-life, and Weiss winced at the realization that her options for light were very limited. Her glyphs would glow, but she was already exhausted and out of Aura. Fire Dust? She couldn't see whether or not there were any more crates in here. It seemed very possible that this was a storage room, or if the woman with the shovel was any indication, some sort of mine. Would the risk of an explosion be worth it?

"Blake?" she called out, backing up another step. Her heel hit something solid and she tripped. Scrambling back upright she tested the ground around her with one foot. Two parallel ridges... more lying perpendicular to them... a grid?

The two Faunus approaching her were faceless in the dark, visible only in stark outlines against the light spilling from the entryway. Weiss blinked rapidly, trying to force her eyes to adjust.

"Is that it?" The voice from the hallway was mocking, sarcastic. Weiss did a double-take when she realized that it was Blake. "You're strong enough to fight the Schnees, so long as it's two-on-one in the dark?"

The bigger silhouette made a low, dangerous noise in the back of his throat. He didn't turn around. The other whirled, hurling curses. "Annette," The big man snapped. "Keep the traitor busy."

Well. That was ominous.

Weiss flicked the cylinder on her rapier, and the blade began to glow a dull cherry red. The light made a small island around her feet, one that ended in concrete walls in front of and behind her but petered out into blackness to either side. It was enough to see the glint of metal at her feet— _railroad tracks? How long have they been building this?_ It was also enough to realize that there was quite a lot of Dust and explosives in this tunnel. Not in crates, either—only boxes, with all the insulation and foolproof safety that slightly damp cardboard could provide. _Genius._

"Go on then, little girl," the hulking shadow sneered. "Light us up, if you believe in something enough to die for it."  
  


She blinked. "Is that what you think? That dying for the cause is somehow braver than living with the consequences of your own actions?"

No response.

"That's idiotic." Weiss flicked out the light of her rapier.

Well, sort of. She switched to ice Dust, which had a much lower potential for chain reactions. It glowed, but dimly enough that she could barely see three feet in front of her—and that was hardly any use at all.

There was a blur in front of her. She dodged left, then right, then hissed in a breath as a line of fire traced along her leg, just above her knee. A wild swing with her rapier hit something solid, and for an instant there was light as glowing spires of ice grew up out of the ground in front of her. She backed up, stepping carefully over where she knew the tracks had been.

A clatter and an unfamiliar yelp from the passageway sent a thrill of hope through her. Blake was presumably somewhere in the tunnel now, though between her dark clothing and the tunnel's dark everything it was impossible to tell where. Then she was directly between Weiss and the door, silhouetted in the light, her hand outstretched and pointing to the left.

Weiss moved that way, tracking the big man solely by the sound of the chainsaw. He swung once, twice, then her back hit a wall. She ducked, Blake shouted, "Right!" and she rolled out of the way. She was back on her feet in a second, rapier extended. Someone grabbed her by the arm and hauled her away. Then there was a gunshot, and pitch darkness became blinding light.

What little human nightvision she had was ruined. She was left standing in the middle of the tunnel, panting for breath, holding her rapier out like a shield. The air smelled like static. Something brushed against her arm, she whirled and raised her sword—

"It's me."

"Oh."

There was a momentary pause. "Is he...?"

"Down, but breathing."

"Ah."

It occurred to Weiss that Blake had probably just shot a box full of Dust. "You could have killed us both, doing that."

Another silence.

"Not that I'm complaining, exactly."

"We've got to get out of here." A hand wrapped around her wrist, giving her a gentle tug. It was irritating, having to be lead like a child, but Weiss took a step in that direction anyway. Her leg buckled under her.

"Are you okay?" There was a hand on her shoulder, now. She brushed it off and got to her feet. Then she swayed in place, grabbed for the support.

"I think so," she said, after a moment. Her leg stung. It was getting worse by the second. "Mostly."

"Where are you hurt?"

_"I_ will figure that out," Weiss said hurriedly. She could see a square of dim light where they had come from. "As soon as we get somewhere I can _see."_

They emerged into the tunnel, and Weiss looked down.

"Oh."

A jagged gash traced diagonally upward from just above her kneecap to about mid-thigh. It was immediately obvious that the chainsaw had been responsible. She didn't think it was that deep, mostly because she wouldn't be standing if it were.

"I'll get something to tie it up—" Blake started.

"We're still in a White Fang base, and I'd _really_ rather not meet any more Aura users."

The ladder back out of the pit she managed by resting most of her body weight on her arms. She clambered over the ledge and landed on the floor, wincing as she stretched her injured leg out in front of her. Blake offered her a hand up.

Someone sent up the alarm as they emerged from the room, but Blake guided the pair of them down a winding maze of hallways to a back door. She led the way outside, stopping only to scuffle briefly with one of the guards. Weiss stepped out and took the other. Her partner shot her an irritated look.  
  


"What? I'm injured, not useless."

After that it was a mad dash to the wall, and then to the cover of the trees. At one point someone started shooting at them, but at that distance their aim wasn't good enough to be worth worrying about. Eventually the noise of the compound were replaced by the cool silence of the forest.

As soon as they were out of hearing range, they pulled out their scrolls and turned them on. Weiss let out a little breath of relief when she saw that Camille still wasn't due to check in for another twenty minutes.

"We should rest," Blake suggested, perching on a fallen log. "Bind up that cut."

Weiss sat down with a pained grunt. "I'm not sure what good that will do. We don't have anything sterile."

She ripped up her balaclava anyway and tied it around her leg. It stung badly enough that her eyes watered, and the cloth was soon soaked through. "This is inconvenient," she muttered.

_"Inconvenient?"_

Blake was obviously making a conscious effort not to hover. She kept moving as if she were about to stand, then leaning back and shifting around. Weiss adjusted the makeshift bandage and made a mental note to bring a first-aid kit the next time they decided to do something this stupid. Or, better yet, to avoid having a next time doing something this stupid. Then again, it _had_ been... illuminating. Just not necessarily in the way she'd been hoping.

"Who's Adam?" she asked. Blake flinched as if she'd been slapped.

"My old partner," she replied, after a moment. "The reason I left, and... also the reason I stayed as long as I did."

Weiss stared at the ground a moment. She couldn't see it very well in the dark. "The way he talked to you... you were high ranking."

"...Yes."

It should have been obvious, really. She'd known that Blake was head and shoulders above the idiots she'd tangled with that barely knew which end of the gun the bullets came out of. In an organization like the White Fang, strength and skill like that probably went hand in hand with power.

"Exactly _how_ high-ranking?"

"It's complicated. I didn't really have an official title. I was... well, you heard what he called me. In theory, I had a lot of influence because... because Adam was the leader of our operations in Vale. In practice, he didn't actually listen to me much."

"Did you kill anyone?"

She'd never asked before, mostly because the idea of Blake in the White Fang always seemed strangely disconnected from the person she knew. Now the two separate entities had collided—she still hadn't taken off the Grimm mask—and it suddenly seemed important to know. Blake was quiet long enough that Weiss started to feel sick.

"I didn't," she said, eventually. "He did, once. A guard that probably would have killed me. That was a big part of why I left. Not that he did it, exactly, I don't think he meant to at the time. It was how he reacted."

Weiss didn't have the slightest clue what to say to that. Maybe that the guard had been a person, a living breathing person that had been snuffed out. But by the tone of her voice, Blake was all too aware of that. Instead she just sat there, trying to wrap her head around it and failing miserably.

"Say something?"

She realized with a start that she'd accidentally left Blake hanging. "I'm glad you didn't die," she said, because it was about the only thing she felt sure of. "And I'm glad you left."

"So am I." Blake seemed to remember the mask on her face. She ripped it off and tossed it into the woods. Then she stood up. "We should go. It's going to take a long time to get back."

Weiss grimaced and stood up. Her leg took her weight, barely. After a few steps Blake put a shoulder under her arm and helped her walk. They moved like that for what felt like forever, wondering all the time what in Remnant they were supposed to tell Camille when they finally got back.

* * *

Sky usually wasn't bad at waiting. When he was younger, other kids used to pay him to stand in line for them at special sales or events, even ones where he couldn't bring a book with him. He hadn't minded any of that. Waiting while a bunch of people he really, really liked risked their lives? That was entirely different and he'd bitten his nails down to the quick within the first ten minutes.

He was still worlds better than BRYN.

Dove seemed to be trying to act cool and collected, but he kept pacing and the muttering to himself and being oddly snappy when these nervous ticks were pointed out to him. Yang was twisting strands of hair around one finger, then mussing it up, all apparently without realizing. She was also fidgeting constantly, leaning against walls and straightening up and folding and unfolding her arms and generally acting like someone was running a live current through her entire body.

They were all nervous, but Nora was also _bored,_ and the two emotions didn't mix well. She moved around more than the other two combined, always bouncing where she stood or walking in circles or even splaying out flat on the ground and making dramatic groaning noises. Then she'd switch gears and start wondering aloud what was taking so long and where Ren was and if he was hurt and _seriously,_ why were they still out here doing nothing?

The answer to _that_ was that they were on a mission. Friday had come around, and as student vigilantes they were now free to do battle with crime in the dark underbelly of Vale instead of more wholesome things like homework and classes. There was also the fact that Goodwitch had finally stopped _twitching_ every time she heard Yang talk. Or Ruby. Or Nora, or... well, any of them. That meant it was less likely that she'd murder them if they were caught.

So they were on a mission. Or, well, most of RSPR was. Ruby had declared earlier that day that this was going to be a stealth and sabotage kind of outing, and they needed to pick people to go. Russel had turned and looked at the rest of his team out of the corner of his eye and started belly-laughing. He'd then been drafted himself, because he could pick locks. Ruby went along for her engineering knowledge, Pyrrha for her semblance, and Ren because he was actually good at walking and fighting quietly.

Sky knew leaving him behind wasn't malicious. Ruby had apologized for it half a hundred times in the time between coming up with the plan and now, and Ren and Pyrrha had both made a point of saying that they were glad he was going to be nearby. Even so... it was crap timing.

Still, the fact remained that while he and Dove weren't explicitly _bad_ at stealth, they also weren't good enough to warrant bringing along. More people always equaled more noise. And Yang and Nora _were_ explicitly bad at stealth. All this stuff was starting to get harder and harder to remember as they crouched (or leaned against walls, or paced, or lay on the ground like roadkill) inside the warehouse across the street from their target. It was the same one he'd been standing in just about a week ago, which Pyrrha had helpfully broken into for them. The infiltration team all had their scrolls, and would call or text if something happened. He and the remainder of BRYN were the cavalry.

Sky had never realized how fast being the cavalry made you start hoping for something to go wrong. He didn't want the others hurt, or caught, or _anything_ like that—he just wanted some clue of what the _hell_ was happening. In the meantime Dove was going to wear a groove in the floor, Yang was making him worry about scorch marks, and he was pretty sure that Nora was about to go charging in there, or panic, or both.

So, yes. He was starting to understand why some people hated waiting.

His scroll buzzed.

* * *

"Okay," Ruby said. "So maybe this is a little bit of a hiccup."

Their self-appointed mission had started about two minutes ago, and Russel was trying very hard not to laugh at their luck.

In front of them, the entrance they'd used to get in last time was locked. That wasn't the problem—it was why they'd brought him in the first place. The problem was that it was also guarded. Not by one of Torchwick's goons, according to the other three. He was obviously a Faunus, based on the cat's tail trailing behind him. Russel suspected he might be White Fang, considering the symbol painted on the mechs they'd found last week, but it was hard to tell since he wasn't in uniform.

"We could try to sneak in through a window?" Ruby whispered.

Russel poked his head out around the corner of a building and took another peek at the guard. "I'm more worried about why they suddenly decided they need guards," he said, keeping his voice below even a whisper. They weren't sure if the guy would have superhuman hearing or not. Conventional logic said he shouldn't, since his ears weren't any different from theirs, but conventional logic also said that, say, hawk Faunus shouldn't have superior night vision. Better safe than sorry.

They ended up going through a window. It was more complicated than it sounded, mostly because the only unbarred window they could find was on the second story and definitely not large enough for a person to comfortably fit through. They lined up on the roof, lowering one another down so that they could squirm headfirst into the building. Pyrrha went last and used some kind of weird swinging motion to get in without any help at all.

Inside, it was almost completely dark. They were in an office of some kind, with a computer terminal, a map, and an overflowing ashtray full of cigar butts. Russel picked one up and sniffed it experimentally, only for Ruby to slap it out of his hand.

Another window on the opposite wall looked out on the warehouse proper. It was filled to the brim with crates and boxes and even cloth sacks of crystals, powder, and liquid vials. Russel remembered that room—this must have been the window Sky had been looking through from the other side.

...Right before he saw something in this room that made him jump over the railing and fall almost a full storey. Russel glanced around nervously. The place was deserted except for a spider crawling up one wall.

Ruby poked him in the shoulder and gave a questioning shrug. Russel pointed out the window, in the general direction of the hallway he'd entered through last time. There weren't as many guards inside the warehouse, in fact he could only see one. The woman was wandering between crates. He furrowed his brow—by all appearances, she wasn't a Faunus. That didn't really fit with his theory about the other guy being White Fang. She held a gun loosely in her left hand and looked bored out of her mind. Hopefully, she'd stay that way.

Russel moved to pick the lock on the office door, but it was open from this side and all it took was a twist of the knob. His heart was pounding—the window let him see _downstairs_ just fine, but it told him absolutely nothing about whether or not someone was standing three feet away on the catwalk. Why there were so many more people around than last time? Had they noticed Sky when he looked through the window?

He eased the door open slowly, turning his head left and right. The catwalk was deserted, and with his heart in his throat he eased his feet along the metal. If he didn't pick them up to take a step, he wouldn't make as much noise. The woman down below didn't look at him as he slid his way to the stairs. Ruby followed him, pressing herself flat against the wall—maybe out of nervousness, maybe because she'd watched too many spy movies. After her came Pyrrha and Ren. They were about halfway to the stairs when the woman made as if to turn. Pyrrha thrust out her hand, and at the other end of the room there was a clatter. The guard jogged away to investigate.

As soon as she was distracted, they sprinted to relative safety of a crate of Dust. Russel crouched behind it while he waited for the others. The guard was walking back towards them, grumbling none-too-quietly about idiots who didn't watch where they were leaning their swords. They edged around the crate, then fled down the length of the room.

Russel was about to turn the corner into the hallway when he heard footsteps. He skidded to a halt and ducked behind another crate, crouching down as another guard entered. He was human, or he looked it. Russel breathed a sigh of relief. He really didn't think he was stealthy enough to fool super-senses.

Slowly, Ren crept forward and peered out into the hallway at about knee-height. Then he yanked his head back and turned to them, frowning. Ruby made a questioning gesture. He held up three fingers, because apparently they weren't dumb enough to leave their evil robots unguarded. _Stupid criminals._

Pyrrha poked her head up over the crate they were hiding behind. Then, she got a little smirk on her face and made another gesture with her hand.

This time, it was a lot more than a clatter. Something fell, and Russel guessed it was probably one of the crates because one of the guards screamed and he was pretty sure he heard ice crystallizing. All three of the guards on the mech door came running, and he could hear high-pitched cracking noises as they started trying to dig out whichever unfortunate had been caught up in the reaction.

The four of them sprinted down the hallway, and Russel started digging around in the lock.

"They're not going to be distracted for long," Ren said.

"Don't rush me."

He'd already done this the other day, so it didn't take more than twenty seconds or so. Then he had a problem—how to open it without making a lot of noise. He turned to Pyrrha. She frowned at the sides of the door, then laid a hand on it.

"I've never actually tried this before," she pointed out.

"No worries." Russel grinned. "We're only going to get attacked by everyone in the warehouse if you—" Ruby covered his mouth with one hand. If it had been anyone else he would've licked them, but he fell silent.

The door eased open with... well, it felt like a _lot_ of noise to him, but he was pretty sure the guards wouldn't hear it over the one woman's swearing—from what he could gather, she'd gotten frozen up to her waist and was not enjoying the experience. They all slipped inside and shut the door.

It was pitch dark until Ren pulled out his scroll. Russel was proud of himself for not jumping out of his skin, since he'd apparently walked right up to one of the robots and his face was about three inches from the barrel of a gun mounted on its shoulders.

"Okay," Ruby whispered. "If you were a criminal in a hurry, which of these would you grab first?" Ren shrugged and pointed to the one in the front. All four of them stood in front of it.

"Do you recognize the model?" Russel asked Ruby. She reached out and tapped one of the joints.

"...Sorta? It's got a lot in common with the Knights, but it's bigger and probably more complicated.

There was a moment of silence.

"Well, can you break it?"

She grinned a devilish grin, the kind that made him remember just who she was related to. Then she cracked her knuckles and turned to Pyrrha. "Try feeling around in here." She poked the joint again. "There should be a piston near the center..."

Russel tuned out most of the technical details. Instead, he watched as Ruby murmured directions to Pyrrha, who then reached out towards the machine in intense concentration. When asked why exactly it had never come up before that she had a semblance as powerful as _control over magnetism,_ she'd said that she only ever made small adjustments. Apparently she hadn't practiced much with using her semblance blindly, but she could feel around a bit and she knew how to make tiny changes. Tiny changes that were now being directed by the girl who had built the most complicated weapon Russel had ever seen and who liked reading engineering magazines for fun.

So he sat back, feeling a lot like dumb muscle, and pondered the fact that he'd basically just participated in a heist. _Screw Dove, I could totally be a cat burglar._ In and out, like a ghost. Like a _ninja._ Like a—

Aw, shit.

"Um, guys?" He pointed to the door, which was closed and probably once again guarded by three people. "...How are we getting out?"

They all turned to stare at him.

Two minutes later, Russel sent Sky a text. They found that, luckily, there _was_ a window in the room. Unluckily, it was covered with burglar bars. Pyrrha had to unscrew them with her semblance, and even with as much fine control as she had it took almost ten minutes. It probably didn't help that the rest of them were breathing down her neck the entire time.

  
His team and Sky did their part by distracting the guard posted on that side of the building. Russel didn't realize how they were doing it until he climbed back out onto street level. He took in the scene before him, and briefly wondered if he'd blundered onto the set of a soap opera.

"And for _her!"_ Yang was yelling, gesticulating wildly at Nora. "For shame!"

Dove—looking as embarrassed as Russel had ever seen _anyone_ in his _entire life—_ mumbled something in reply.

"Difficult to live with? That's seriously your excuse? You _bastard!"_ Yang took a swing at him, and he yelped and hid behind Nora. She was shaking, and judging by the odd twist of her mouth it was because she was trying not to burst out laughing.

Standing slightly off and to one side was a man that Russel assumed was probably the guard. Even with his back to them, discomfort rolled off of him in waves. "Er, ma'am?" he tried.

Yang whirled around and jabbed a finger in his face. "Shut up! Just shut up! You're all just liars!"

He took a step backward. "Ma'am. This is private property, you need to—"

"With my own cousin!"

Around a corner, Sky gestured frantically for them to come that way. Russel shook himself out of his daze and followed after him. He and the rest of the infiltration team absconded into the night. And, in the far distance, he could still just hear Yang's voice.

"But _what_ about the _baby?!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because when BRYN provides a distraction, they _commit._


	24. Getting to Know You [9]

"Quit pacing."

Jaune kicked a fallen tree branch, then stepped over it and continued striding back and forth across the small clearing. Cardin groaned and tipped his head back, leaning against the trunk of a tree. His legs were sprawled out in front of him.

Another few minutes passed. Then, "Seriously. Stop."

Whirling around, Jaune jabbed a finger at Cardin. "Do you know what time it is?"

Cardin gave him a flat look. "Yeah. And they're not going to get here faster if you keep doing that."

"It makes me feel better," Jaune grumbled. He kept pacing.

Finally, Cardin muttered a string of curses and then said, "What?"

"Huh?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Hey!" Jaune glared at him.

"Why are you pacing? It's annoying."

He stopped walking around and stood with his arms folded, his foot scuffing in the dirt. "They're late."

"No shit."

Sure, Jaune had expected Blake and Weiss' mission to take a little longer than his and Cardin's, but he'd also taken that into account. Based on the estimate the Huntress they were shadowing had given him, the two of them were supposed to have been back by yesterday at the _latest._ And now, here they weren't.

Jaune ran a hand through his hair. He'd done it so many times now that it was sticking up like he'd just been struck by lightning. "Tell me they're probably fine."

Cardin snorted.

"Okay, whatever." Jaune threw his hands up. "I don't know why I expected _you_ to care!"

"I care. If they die, I don't know if we get to graduate." Jaune highly doubted that he and his partner would pass the year if the other half of their team didn't come back, regardless of whether or not they were allowed to continue as a two-man team. He decided not to mention it.

"They're probably fine, though," Cardin said, after a while. "They have a Huntress coddling them, right?"

"Yeah." Jaune frowned. "But... I mean, last time I waited up for them when they were late, Blake came back with a busted arm."

At that moment, his scroll buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the screen. There was a message from Camille, the Huntress Blake and Weiss were shadowing, informing him that despite some _minor medical issues,_ they would be arriving within twenty minutes or so.

He dropped the scroll back in his pocket and muttered, "Damn it, guys."

Cardin mock gasped. "Ooh, Vomit Boy said a bad word!"

"One of them is hurt," Jaune said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Supposedly it's minor."

  
"Great." Cardin cracked his neck. "I guess we're going to have to do all the work. Again."  
  


Jaune wasn't sure what he thought he meant by _again_ , but he decided it wasn't worth the bother of arguing with him. Instead, he settled in to wait—which was, perversely, way easier now that he knew there had been minor medical issues. The last shoe had dropped. Except it hadn't, because half an hour later another airship touched down and Weiss walked out with a _very_ pronounced limp.

"Damn it, guys!" Jaune shouted, rushing over to see. There was a bandage wrapped around her leg, from the underside of her knee to midway up her thigh. It was clean, which was sort of a relief, but judging by the way she walked it was nowhere near healed yet. "How is this minor?!"

"Nice to see you too, Jaune," Weiss snapped. "Now, if you would please _move—"_

"Don't mind her." Blake gently nudged him out of the way, leaving Weiss free to get off the airship. "She's just grumpy because they tried to give her crutches."

"Of course I am! I'm perfectly capable of walking, _thank you very much."_

Jaune hesitated. "Won't that make it worse? It looks like a really big bandage—wait, did the Grimm do that?"

She hesitated. "In a manner of speaking. We found a Deathstalker in a cave, and—"

"You got stung by a Deathstalker?" Jaune blurted, horrified.

Weiss glared at him. "If I _had,_ I wouldn't be breathing right now." She broke eye-contact. "We collapsed a cave on top of it and I was hit by a rock. Happy?"  
  


"No!"

Hang on. How did she get hit by a rock and end up with bandages instead of a cast or a splint or something? And she looked kind of... embarrassed, maybe? Why would—

Behind him, Cardin started a slow, sarcastic clap. "Great job," he drawled. "Really. You're an inspiration to all of us."

Jaune turned around and snapped, "Don't." He scowled, but shut up.

Weiss and Blake both stared at him for a moment. He gave them a warning look, hoping they read it as _don't bring it up, please,_ and then hastily changed the subject. "Is that what took you so long?"

Blake nodded. "We found the cave pretty far out, and it took a while to walk back with Weiss' leg. Technically we weren't supposed to engage, but we didn't realize it was the Grimm's lair until after it had spotted us. There wasn't time to call Camille."

Jaune sighed. "So, this is the part where I point out that you two have gone away from Beacon alone together exactly twice—"

"We know," Weiss grumbled.

"—and both times one of you came back with an injury."

Blake looked at her feet. "I'm sorry."

"What are you talking about?" Weiss gave her a funny look.

"It was my idea to inv—" Blake cut off midsentence, wincing. "I mean... It was my idea to go in there in the first place."

"You're being ridiculous."

"Am I?"

"Guys?" They both turned to look at Jaune. "Maybe I'm starting to think you're worse trouble magnets than Brine, but I'm sure you were doing what you could to not get hurt. And we need to plan around that injury, because we're a bit behind schedule as it is and this mission will probably take a while."

"We could just do it the three of us," Cardin suggested.

Weiss' eyes flashed. "If you think I'm going to sit here like an _invalid,_ then you must be even stupider than you look."

"Well, _short stack,_ if you can beat me in a leg race—"

"We're not leaving anyone behind," Jaune said, rubbing at his temple. "The whole point of this is to figure out how we can work together." He glanced between the three of them and steeled himself. "We're going to finish this mission, and then we're going to go back to Beacon as an actual _team,_ not just a bunch of people who barely tolerate each other." Weiss and Blake both shot dirty looks in Cardin's direction. He sneered right back.

"Cooperation is not optional," Jaune declared, putting his hands on his hips. _And I'm going to be the bridge here even if it kills me._

Which, if he considered their team's track record—one half dreadfully danger-prone, the other half tragically terrible at fighting—wasn't all that hard to imagine.

* * *

It was less than twenty-four hours after their last mission, and they were already on another one. Dove still hadn't recovered from yesterday—he hadn't done any fighting, but he _had_ been tossed onstage with no warning and told to improvise. At the very least, this was going to be a straight fight. No subterfuge, no sneaking around, and no pretending to be an adulterer. Just violence.

He wondered if maybe his team was rubbing off on him a bit.

Before he could think too much about that—thank _god—_ he was interrupted by Ruby abruptly stopping and turning around. "Okay," she said. "Everyone ready?"

"Wait!" Dove turned to stare at Sky. The boy seemed surprised by his own outburst. Then he shifted from foot to foot and said, "Well, um... we need to separate Torchwick and Umbrella Girl, right?"

Ruby frowned. "I mean, we're going to be in two groups, right? Half of us go one way, and half of us the other. If they want to chase both teams, they split up."

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "But... it's not a total guarantee they won't team up. What if, instead, we show them an opponent that they're _certain_ one of them can deal with alone?"

"Where are you going with this?" asked Pyrrha.

Sky winced. "I'm so going to regret this," he mumbled. Then, louder, "We need someone to be nice, nonthreatening bait. Someone for one of them to chase out of the building."

"Not it," Russel said immediately.

"I'm... uh, I can do it." Dove did a double take. Sky didn't _look_ like he could do it, honestly. He was shaking a lot. "I mean, he doesn't know who I am since... uh... he didn't see me last time. And I'm not exactly scary looking. Why have someone _act_ like a scared teenager when... uh..."

"If this is about what happened before—" Pyrrha started.

"It kind of is," he admitted. "But it's not really any more dangerous than anything _else_ we're about to do, so..."

"True," Dove said. "It's fine with me."

"So, what? Brine goes in and attacks whoever doesn't come out?" Russel asked.

"Sure." Ruby nodded. "And Raspberry can defend Sky."

From there, they each went their separate ways—RSPR towards the side entrance they'd snuck into yesterday, and BRYN to a hiding spot near the main door. "Wait for the signal," Dove whispered.

"Signal?" Russel stared at him. "Sky fleeing for his life isn't exactly a signal."

"We're trying to be all mission-impossible," Nora hissed, flicking him on the arm.

"Guys." Dove strained his eyes and ears toward the warehouse, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He was starting to hate waiting.

Just then, Ruby and Pyrrha burst through the doorway trailing rose petals, with Sky and Ren right behind them. Torchwick—or, well, Dove thought it was probably Torchwick—came barreling through the wall in hot pursuit. Very literally _through_ the wall. He'd picked up the mecha alright, and obviously didn't expect to keep this base. That, or he'd always wanted to do a little remodeling.

"Torchwick is out," Dove said. "Let's go around and look for Umbrella Girl."

"What if Shoulder is in there?" Russel asked. Dove winced at the nickname—Sky had used it once without thinking, and now they were all referring to a mysterious and supposedly terrifying entity by the body part that backpacks hung off of. It was a fair question, though.

"Sky said she seemed powerful," he allowed, "but..."

"Sky."

"It's possible his nerves were getting to him, yes. We still need to be careful. Don't engage her unless you have to."

With that, team BRYN burst from cover and charged the warehouse's main entrance. A mook tried to stop them. Yang blasted him through a door without breaking step. More approached—they didn't slow down. Well, mostly. Russel's boot caught on one of their belts and he had to hop on one foot for a second until he freed himself. If they actually did take down Roman Torchwick and become heroes, Dove was going to be sure to mention that to their future biographers.

Russel led the group, since he'd been in here twice already. They passed the room where the mechs were stored and he paused briefly to poke his head inside. "He took the right one!" he whooped. "Or, well, I guess it's the wrong one if you really think about it."

"Where's Umbrella Girl?" Yang cracked her knuckles. "I've been looking forward to meeting her."

A long, metallic _scrape_ sounded from somewhere above them. They all craned their necks to look, and saw a woman shorter even than Nora strutting along the catwalk, dragging the tip of a parasol on the steel behind her. She stopped in the middle, leaning on the railing and smirking down at them. When she blinked, her eyes changed color.

"I'm guessing that's Umbrella Girl?" Russel said.

The woman's grin grew a fraction. She posed for them, resting her parasol on her shoulder and cocking her hip.

"She's pretty smug for someone outnumbered four to one." Yang glared up at her, clenching both fists.

At that, the woman flipped gracefully over the rail and landed gently in front of them, the umbrella held out in one hand as if she was shielding herself from a light drizzle, her hair drawn back over one shoulder. _Still posing._

She wasn't entirely motionless, though. Her eyes flicked towards the other end of the building, just once. Looking for Torchwick. Dove would really rather she didn't do that. "Your boss isn't going to come help you," he said, deliberately making his voice louder, brasher. Boastful, even. He remembered how Cardin spoke. "We're not alone. And the other group with us fought him _and_ you last time and won. He doesn't stand a chance."

The look on her face turned almost pitying, and so condescending that he was momentarily worried he might shrivel up on the spot. Then she glanced left, and right, and flourished the umbrella.

"Charge!" Dove didn't need to say it, in fact Nora was halfway there by the time he did, but it seemed appropriate.

All four of them converged on her as one. Dove swung his sword wide towards her left side, Yang aimed a series of punches at her back to keep her from retreating, Russel slashed at her weapon hand to try and disarm her, and Nora went for an attack from above. Umbrella Girl moved between them like a liquid. She bent forward and ducked under Dove's slash, redirected Yang sideways so that she got tangled up in Russel's attack, and then let Nora's hammer pass within inches of her on its way to the floor. In the end she was left standing in the middle of all of them, parasol held primly in front of her with its tip against the ground, _still smirking._

Even Dove felt his blood start to boil. And _that_ meant...

"Oh, come _on!"_ Yang pushed her way free of Russel and burst into flame. "Are you going to fight or just prance around?!"

Still with that infernal grin, the woman nodded. Then she darted forward, slipped between Dove's next attack and one of Russel's daggers, and poked Yang in the stomach with the parasol. Not an _attack._ A _poke._

Yang lunged for her and ended up knocking into Russel again. He growled something foul under his breath and sprinted forward, slashing wildly. He was redirected with the Umbrella and wound up crashing into one of the crates of Dust, knocking it over and landing sprawled on the other side. Nora rushed at the woman, swinging her hammer at waist height. She didn't move. For a moment Dove was sure she was going to be knocked into the far wall, but when the weapon hit her she shattered like a pane of glass. Then something smashed into his shoulder, and when he turned she was behind him. Smiling.

This was getting ridiculous. "Don't lose focus," Dove ordered, not really knowing how much good it would do. He tried firing a few shots, but she weaved between them without even looking. _Really?_

He glanced around frantically for something, _anything_ they could use to disrupt her. It occurred to him that they were standing in the middle of a literal maze of Dust containers. "Use the crates!" he shouted.

Nora turned around, and her face lit up like a Christmas tree. She spun and put her whole body into another blow, this one aimed at one of the crates rather than Umbrella Girl. It dented, skidded, flipped, and then burst open.

Russel kicked over a nearby box of Dust, letting vials of blue liquid scatter all across the floor. He picked one up, slipped it into his left dagger, and twisted it. The blade began to glow. Nora just picked out another container, this one emblazoned with a lightning bolt, and lined up a shot with her hammer. Her eyes shone with excitement.

"Nora," Dove said, realizing much too slowly that his relatively sane idea of having Russel or Yang use more potent ammunition was now way out of his hands. He reached out, as if _that_ would stop her. "Don't do that, you're going to get—"

"Hey!" Nora beamed. "Wanna see something cool?!" She slammed her hammer into the box. There was a flash of light, and then the whole room smelled like copper and ozone. His partner was still standing, her hair bristling on end, her hammer held up like it weighed nothing at all. She started laughing— _belly laughing._

"Holy crap!" Russel shouted. "I totally forgot you could do that! That's so cool!" He stabbed the dagger into the ground and ice blossomed across the floor. Umbrella Girl, who had been in the middle of slipping around one of Yang's punches, momentarily lost balance. Dove hesitated for a split second. Then, embracing the madness, he shoved Nora across the ice. She cackled, crouched down like a figure skater, and lined up a shot.

Umbrella Girl probably would have gotten out of the way, but before she had the chance Yang ran forward and grabbed her arm. The fact that she'd succeeded at all came as a shock, but the her opponent was still trying to regain her balance... and Yang was just melting all the ice around her feet.

There was a heartbeat in which everything seemed to line up. Yang gave Umbrella Girl a shove. Nora straightened up out of her crouch and launched herself into the air, hammer drawn back. Russel's eyes went huge and he dove out of the way, belly-sliding across the ice like a deranged penguin.

Nora connected with their opponent like a bomb, slamming her into the floor and kicking up a rain of ice shards. Yang wasn't _quite_ out of the cross-fire—she ended up half-buried in the wreckage of what used to be the stairs up to the catwalk. She was up in less than a second, though, unlike Umbrella Girl.

The woman struggled to her feet, slipping a shortsword from inside the parasol and straightening up as much as she could. Her smirk was gone. There was a wide cut across her forehead.

"Your Aura is gone," Dove informed her. "You're still outnumbered, and our associates are dealing with Torchwick—"

"Way to make us sound like Color War era Mantle soldiers, Dove," Russel added. "What, are our _associates_ gonna tie him to a chair, and shine a really bright light in his face, and—"

"Shut up."

"Okay, okay, whatever!"

Dove cleared his throat. "Right. Surrender now."

Umbrella Girl narrowed her eyes at him. She lifted her chin, brandished her shortsword defiantly—and then turned on a dime and sprinted back through the Dust crates.

"After her!" He vaulted over the banged-up husk of the crate that Nora had hit and followed her out another back entrance. She darted down an alley, and Dove and Nora followed. He wasn't sure where the other two had gone, but there wasn't time to wonder—she jumped up and pushed herself over a fence, then shoved a dumpster into their path when they tried to follow.

Then, at the mouth of the alley, "Too slow!" Russel stood there, hands on his hips. Yang was behind him with a predatory look on her face.

Nostrils flaring, Umbrella Girl glanced first at one partner pair, then the other. It was her first display of any emotion besides smugness. She was obviously furious. But, very grudgingly, she raised both hands above her head.

"You have the right to remain silent," Russel declared. Then he burst out laughing.

Dove wasn't entirely sure at this point whether the girl could talk or not—she hadn't so far, but maybe she was just messing with them. Then again, judging by the look on her face at the joke...

"Russel." Nora wagged a finger at him. "Jar."

"What?! She just tried to kill us!"  
  


"You have to treat your enemies with dignity," Dove told him. "It's one of the rules of being a Huntsman." Russel blew a raspberry at him. Dove noticed that both his pockets were bulging, and the tops of a few vials of liquid dust were poking out.

Dignity was probably a lost cause with that one.

* * *

Ruby didn't like the plan very much. Sure, it was probably better than the one they'd had before, but it _sucked._ They were all hiding in the hallway leading out of the warehouse, hoping no one walked in at the wrong moment, and hoping Sky was okay, and hoping he hadn't run off before Torchwick even saw him.

That last part was the worst thing. She didn't _want_ to think he'd do that, but it was kind of hard not to. She paced a little, straightened her cloak. Somewhere further inside the building, Sky screamed.

_Okay,_ she thought. _He didn't run._ The screaming was ominous, though.

Seconds later, she heard a gunshot. Running footsteps. Something occurred to her.

"Back up," she told her teammates. "Behind the mech door." They did. No sooner had they moved than Sky came tearing around the corner. His hair was all over the place and she was pretty sure there was a new dent in his breastplate, but otherwise he seemed fine. Right behind him, Torchwick jogged along with his cane twirling around one finger.

"—rats," he was saying. "I swear, it's like an infestation! Everywhere I turn—" He noticed the rest of RSPR.

"More brats!" he cried, slashing his cane violently through the air. "How did you even find me?!"

Ruby grinned innocently. "Well, we were in the neighborhood."

His expression turned pouty. "I _liked_ this base," he complained. Then he pointed his cane at them. "I _also_ liked being able to take a step in this city without tripping over a teenager with no sense of self-preservation." Then he smirked. The expression was sharp, vicious. Normally he acted suave, sarcastic, even a little funny—but it was moments like this that reminded her that he was a killer. With a tip of his hat, he shot the lock off the mech door and heaved it wide.

"You know," he said, "I've had it up to _here_ with you stupid kids." And with that, he disappeared inside.

"We should probably start running now," Ruby suggested. Sky nodded frantically, too busy panting to answer with words.

They all broke into a sprint. Ruby suppressed her semblance and kept even with Pyrrha. Sky lagged slightly behind them with Ren at his side. They were at the exit when they heard it—the squeal of tearing metal, heavy clanking footsteps, and laughter.

"Leaving already?" Torchwick mocked. "Sorry, little Red. It's a bit late for that."

Ruby glanced over her shoulder. _Okay, that thing's way faster than I thought._ "Keep ahead of it," she called out. "As long as you can!" Of course, she wouldn't have any trouble outrunning it, but as soon as her teammates were forced to turn and fight then she would too. They left the warehouse, emerging into a sunny afternoon that felt totally out of place in the middle of a firefight. Behind them, she heard whistling.

"Rocket!" Ren called out. She whirled around, aimed Crescent Rose, and shot the thing out of the air.

"Nice moves!" Torchwick said. His voice was being amplified somehow. A loudspeaker in the mech?

He took another few steps. There was a clank, and the mech's gait stuttered. "I don't think that thing works very well," Ruby said, smiling as if she simply had _no idea_ how that could have happened.

Guns emerged from the sides of the machine and spat bullets. Then, one by one, they jammed. "What the—" Torchwick put on another burst of speed and swung at Sky. He yelped as he ducked, then ran a little faster. "It's never even been used!" he shouted, indignant. "How the hell did those animals manage to break it right off the train?!"

"It's not very nice to call them that," Ruby pointed out.

"Contrary to popular belief, _I don't care,"_ Torchwick snapped. The mech's arm clicked and whirred, then shuddered. A jerky, clumsy transformation later, and he was firing another rocket. Pyrrha stopped long enough to fling her shield and detonate it in midair.

"Okay," Ruby said. "No more running."

"Oh, really?" Torchwick sniggered. "Look, kid, I know you're probably deluded enough to think that if you just _believe_ hard enough, you can do _anything—_ even take down a master criminal."

Another step forward. Metal whined against metal, and the whole mech shook. "But when that master criminal has all the firepower..." He spread the mechanical arms wide. "Are you really naive enough to think that the power of friendship is enough to beat _this?"_

"Nope." The joint in his legs finally gave out. With a last tortured squeal, the mech tipped over and landed spread-eagled on the ground. "I just knew that would happen."

"You did this, didn't you?!" Whatever speaker had been amplifying his voice was still working—she and Pyrrha had only had so much time, after all, and they'd wanted to start by breaking all the guns.

Ruby held up both hands. Pyrrha slapped one, and Sky high-fived both the other and one of Ren's.

"Ugh. If I'm going to have to fight you myself I can at least spare myself watching _that,"_ Torchwick grumbled. There was a loud _click._ Nothing happened. "Oh, come _on."_ Another click. Then some banging, as if he was pounding on the exit hatch. "Seriously?!"

"Do you wanna come out?" Ruby asked. It was possible she was enjoying this a little more than she should, but hey—he _had_ tried to kill her. More than once, even.

Torchwick said a lot of words that she actually already knew—so there was no point freaking out about it all the time, _BRYN—_ and then went silent. "Let's get him," Ruby decided. They approached the mech cautiously. Sure, they'd done a lot of damage to it, but it was still Atlas' best in military technology. Pyrrha used her semblance to force open the hatch. A bullet whizzed past her head, and she had to duck to avoid it.

"I'm not done yet," he growled, leaping free of the mech and swinging his cane at Ren's head. He dodged backwards, leveling his guns. Torchwick brandished his weapon wildly. Then he swore again when a bullet caught him in the shoulder.

Ruby was tense. They'd been expecting this, but it was still a little daunting to have to fight him when it had gone so badly last time. She approached him from behind, whirling her scythe around her, and then slashed. He turned in time to deflect her first attack, and even the second, but then Sky ran up to him and he made the mistake of taking his eyes off Crescent Rose. She caught him in the side and sent him reeling.

"Damn it!" He flailed for a moment, off-balance, and then yelped when Sky managed to hit him over the head with the shaft of his axe. She was pretty sure that he'd been trying to use the sharp part and had missed, but it was still progress. Torchwick backed away, but then he ran into Pyrrha and it became very clear that he was _much_ slower than she was. He took blows to the cheek, chest, and thigh before he managed to disengage and head back in Sky's direction.

"Why aren't you using your semblance?" Ren demanded. He was tense—they all were.

Torchwick furrowed his brow. "Wha—" then he stopped. Smirked. "Well, I don't know. It just didn't seem _fair,_ you know?"

"You weren't the one doing it," Ren decided.

The thief shrugged, still grinning. "Can't say I was."

  
"Was it Shoulder?" Sky asked.

Torchwick stared at him, looking affronted. "Never in my _life,"_ he said, "Have I debased myself enough to work with someone with a name as stupid as—" Ren shot him in the side. He cursed and spun around, opting to ignore Sky and focus on the rest of them. Ruby pressed in on his left side, Ren on his right, with Pyrrha advancing straight ahead of him. He lasted for a few more seconds, parrying frantically. Then Sky lined up his halberd and stuck it in the middle of Torchwick's back. He jumped, missed one of his parries, and took another slash from Crescent Rose. A few more hits from Ren and Pyrrha, and he was done.

Ren relieved him of his cane. Just as Ruby was starting to wonder what they should use to tie him up, she was interrupted by some dramatic classical music coming from somewhere in his coat. Sky started rummaging through his pockets. "Is this really necessary?" Torchwick grumbled. "If you touch my hat—" Pyrrha plucked it off his head. "Hey!"

"You tried to kill us," she pointed out. "Twice."

"Aw, c'mon bigger Red. You're not still mad about that, are you?"

"We have names, you know," Ruby said. Sky tossed her Roman's scroll—still making ominous violin noises—and she looked at the screen. The caller ID was unknown. She furrowed her brow in confusion. Slowly, with a suspicious glance at Roman that revealed an oddly blank expression, she touched the answer button and held it to her ear. It took a surprising amount of effort to keep herself from saying hello.

There was silence on the other end for a moment, except for a crackling sound like you'd hear at a campfire. Then, a low and silky voice spoke. It was a woman, _definitely,_ and something about it sent chills down Ruby's spine. "Roman," she said. It was commanding, authoritative. _Not_ a minion. "Are you _done_ yet?" Ruby realized suddenly that this woman was waiting for an answer, and panicked. She jabbed frantically at the _end call_ button and shoved the scroll back at Sky.

A ringing silence followed.

"Okay," Sky said slowly. "Why do you look like you just saw a Goliath?"

Roman— _Torchwick_ snickered. "Who was that?" Ruby demanded. "She was your boss, wasn't she?" He made a zipping motion with two fingers across his lips.

"So." Sky nodded slowly. "They have a boss. That makes sense."

"It does?" Ruby asked.

"Well, yeah. I mean, the White Fang don't seem like they'd work with _him_ unless someone else told them to. Maybe one of their higher level members?"

"We can worry about that later," Pyrrha suggested. "For now, we need to get him into custody."

"You said it!" All four of them turned to see Russel, who was waving from his place in front of Umbrella Girl.

Torchwick's smirk fell away. "Neo?"

"Oh, so that's her name!" Ruby winced when he turned to glare at her. "What? We've just been calling her Umbrella girl."

"What do we do, anyway?" Russel asked. "I mean, we probably have to call it in..."

"We've got a plan," Ruby declared. She picked up Torchwick's scroll again—gingerly, like it was a live tarantula—and put in Goodwitch's ID number. Before she started the call, she turned and glared at him. "Okay. So you're going to tell her who you are, and where we are, and then she's going to pick you up and arrest you."

The look on his face wasn't very encouraging. "And I'm doing the talking... why?"

No one answered.

"Oh. Of course. Of _course_ you're all not even _supposed_ to be making my life a living hell." Yang gave him little shove. He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Start the call."

It hadn't even finished the first ring when Goodwitch picked up. "Who is this?" she asked, and her crisp voice was such a relief after the scary mystery woman that Ruby slumped a little where she stood. Torchwick gave the scroll a sour look. Then he grinned.

"Hiya, Glynda!"

"Torchwick." There was a moment of silence. "I assume you have a good reason for contacting me? It's not exactly a wise move for a wanted criminal."

"Ah, but I'm not a wanted criminal anymore," he said. "I've been apprehended. Hoodwinked. Bested."  
  


Another long silence.

"Well, anyway. I'll be tied up at the warehouse at the corner of Smith and Wessen if you wouldn't mind picking me up."

"You're serious." She sighed. "Miss Rose, would you pick up the scroll?"

Ruby yelped.

"I thought as much."

Dove smacked a hand against his forehead, and it occurred to her that _maybe_ Goodwitch had just been guessing. Too late now. She picked up the scroll. "Um, hi Professor."

"I could lecture you about irresponsible behavior," Goodwitch said, sounding more irritated than angry. "But that can wait until after he's in custody. Wait there." The line went dead.

"You guys can go," Ruby said. "I mean, there's no proof that anyone but me was here."

"Other than the fact that we'd never let you fight Torchwick all alone," Yang said.

"And how we were with you when you fought Junior," added Nora.

Sky grinned sheepishly. "I'll get in less trouble with her if I'm here when she shows up, really."

"And I'm not interested in letting you take the fall." Pyrrha rested a hand on her shoulder.

Russel snorted. "Okay, okay, we all love ya and we're not throwing you under the bus. But that doesn't matter anyway, because there's no way Goodwitch is going to believe that any of us weren't here. Like... there could be video evidence of all seven of us sitting around in the cafeteria and she'd probably still think we'd built clones or something. That's how much we get into trouble together."

Ruby decided pretty much on the spot—that was the mark of a true friendship. Being partners in crime so often that there wasn't an alibi in the world that would be enough.

It also occurred to her that she shouldn't mention that in front of Professor Goodwitch.


	25. Getting to Know You [10]

The past week or so had been absolutely insane, and Nora was _all_ for it. Their investigation had been a total blast from start to finish, and they'd actually managed to capture an infamous criminal! Sure, Ruby had intercepted a sinister message from someone who had to be his boss, they still weren't sure who exactly Shoulder was or how she factored into everything, and there was an as-yet-unexplained connection between Torchwick and the White Fang, but _Torchwick_ wasn't going to be bothering anyone anytime soon.

With that out of the way, though, Nora could get back to something that had been bothering her for a while. Namely...

"Dove," she declared, slamming her hands down on the nearest desk. "We gotta do something."

He was, as usual after stressful events, hiding in the library under a stack of books. The weirdo actually did homework to relax—not that Nora was judging him, exactly, but it was definitely weird. Either way, it was just her, Yang, and Russel in the dorm, and she was not going to let this opportunity slip by!

"Do something about what?" Russel asked.

Nora and Yang glared at him until he said, _"Oh,"_ and started nodding. "That. Yeah, even _I_ noticed that."

 _That_ was something that had come up during what Ruby insisted on calling their debriefing. They'd discussed possible identities of Shoulder—the same as Torchwick's mysterious boss? Sky thought so—speculated on how he got his hands on Atlesian Paladins—he stole them, _duh!—_ and then Russel had brought up the White Fang symbol on said Paladins and wondered aloud why the heck they'd be working for Torchwick. As Ruby had put it, "He's human and he has pretty much nothing to do with Faunus Rights."

Dove had shrugged. "They don't need a reason to lash out."

From there the conversation had gotten so awkward so quickly that Russel had eventually just left the room, dragging their leader along behind him.

So. They were taking action—as soon as they figured out what to do.

"We could ask Velvet again," Nora said, then sighed. "Okay, no, never mind."

"Maybe if we find someone else?" Yang shrugged. "I just... can't actually think of anyone."

"I've got it." Nora nodded to herself. "We'll drag him to the movies, and cover his eyes so he doesn't realize where we're going, and then we pick something with a great Faunus lead like—"

"Or," Russel cut in, "We could just talk to him like normal people."

There was a moment of shocked silence.

"Boring," Nora said eventually, "but probably true."

It was most definitely not an intervention. In the interest of making sure Dove was comfortable, Nora had made some coffee for her teammates but _not_ for herself. Yang brought snacks. Russel took one look at the room and started laughing, at which point Nora stepped on his foot. Their leader walked in right about when he was loudly proclaiming that not-interventions should have better food. Dove stared.

"Ah," he said eventually. "I'm going to... study. Again."

"Wait!" Nora reached out to grab his arm, then thought better of it. "Just ignore that last part, it's _really_ not an intervention."

"Okay..."

"We just wanted to talk to you, because you said some stuff that we think maybe we were misinterpreting or something—" Yang nudged her with an elbow, and she cut herself off. "Right. So..."

"Do you hate Faunus?" Russel asked.

"Russ!" Nora shot him a betrayed look.

"What? I'm asking the question!"

Dove was giving her a really puzzled look, now. "Are... is there a reason you're asking? Because I've _heard_ that some Faunus are human-passing, but–"

"No," Nora said, "That's not it and _darn it_ I totally should have said yes, shouldn't I? Because we were trying to find someone nice for you to talk to so that you'd see that they're just people, but Velvet didn't want to do it."

Yang winced. "I think pretending to be a Faunus is probably a bad idea, Nora."

"Yeah, okay, but still!" Nora pointed a finger at Dove. "We're getting side-tracked!"

 _"This_ is why you kept acting so weird!" he burst out. "Thank _god."_

"Uh, what?" Russel did a double take. "What did you _think_ we were doing?"

"All I knew was that the damage potential _depended on me_ and that Nora didn't want me to die alone. I was worried you'd decided to set me up with someone."

Nora scoffed. "Why would I care about that? Ren's single, and he's awesome."

"Wait, what do you mean Ren's—"

"That's not the point!" Her teammates were giving her weird looks now, the jerks. "You still didn't answer the question!"

"Oh, right." Dove nodded. "No, I don't hate them."

There was a moment of hesitation. "Well..." Nora said, shifting from foot to foot. "When you said that Velvet was timid because of genetics..."

Dove stared blankly at her. "Yes?"

"Well, did that just come out wrong or what?"

"It's true," he said, nonchalant. "It's not her fault or anything. I certainly don't hate her."

"There's nothing that backs that up, though," Yang insisted.

Dove raised an eyebrow. "You mean... aside from cats chasing laser pointers, and dogs hanging out in groups, and horses liking to run?"

"Not everyone is like that, though!" Nora protested.

"I'm sure there are outliers, but in most cases they're emotionally volatile and act instinctively." He spread his hands, as if helpless to refute this. "I'm sorry if that bothers you, but it's true. I'm going to study." And with that, he left.

"So," Russel said cheerfully. "That went well." Yang picked up a pillow and threw it at his head. "Hey!"

"Why'd you blurt it out like that?" she demanded.

"We decided to ask him, so I asked him! It's not my fault it didn't go as planned!"

Yang sighed. "Okay, okay, you're right. I'm sorry. But seriously, have you ever even _heard_ of tact?"

Russel grinned. "Nope."

* * *

Sky hadn't exactly meant to start brooding. It was never a good look on him, mostly because even he knew he was way too much of a dork to pull it off properly without ending up all pouty or whiny. Still, after the third time he spaced out during their Sunday post-debriefing training session—he had no idea why almost getting killed taking down a crime lord called for _more_ friendly sparring instead of a break, but maybe this was just how Ruby celebrated—he was pretty sure all his teammates had noticed.

"You need to keep your weapon up," Ren told him, gently nudging it with one of his guns. Sky did a double take.

"Oh," he said. "Right."

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Sky glanced in Ruby and Pyrrha's direction. They were both staring at him. He blushed.

"Sorry."

Ruby gave Pyrrha a little nudge and started a whole nonverbal conversation— _Maybe you could—No, it's probably best if you do it—But I don't know how—You're his leader—_ and eventually she sighed and said, "Um. What's wrong?"

Sky winced. He kind of wanted to say, 'Nothing!' but he knew he wouldn't be fooling anyone. "I'm just... still not any good at this," he mumbled, scuffing the ground with his toe. "You know. Fighting. Heroism. All that."

Ren blinked. "You _did_ volunteer as bait for a Paladin," he pointed out.

"And without your help, we probably never would have found him," Pyrrha added.

Sky flushed again. "Oh. Well, maybe? It's only that... I was picturing this big heroic moment where I'd stop wanting to run away. Instead I just kind of felt nauseous the whole time."

Ren smiled a little at that. "I think I should tell you about how I first met Nora."

If Sky had been expecting _anything,_ it definitely hadn't been that. "Uh... okay?"

"She was alone in the village where I lived, being picked on by a few of the other children."

Sky was pretty sure he knew where this was going.

"I watched. I wanted them to leave her alone, but I didn't do anything."

Okay, he definitely _hadn't_ known where this was going.

"It's not something I'm proud of, but my—someone helped me realize that my inaction was wrong. The next time I saw her, in the middle of the Grimm attack, I went over to her. We helped each other."

Sky nodded dumbly. It was easy to forget just how _intense_ the bond between Ren and Nora actually was. Fire-forged felt like a gross understatement.

Ren hesitated. "My point is that... the first time I didn't help her. The second time I did. But it wasn't that I stopped being afraid. Quite the opposite—the Grimm were far scarier than a few boys my own age. Fear is natural. It's what we do about it that matters."

Pyrrha nodded at that. "He's right." She smiled, a little embarrassed. "Before my first tournament, I was so nervous I was worried I might pass out. It took me almost fifteen minutes to open my locker because my hands were shaking."

"Yeah." Ruby shifted a little, drawing her cloak closer to herself. "I mean, pretty much my whole family are Hunters. So... I guess I grew up with a weird attitude towards the Grimm. By the time I was old enough to be scared of them my uncle was teaching me how to kill them. But my mom died fighting them, too. Even a really skilled fighter only has to be unlucky once. It's scary, but I've always wanted to be a Huntress, so... I just kinda have to work around that."

"Thanks." The word felt wholly inadequate. "For... I mean..."

"You're welcome," Ren said, smiling. Sky had the sense that they'd understood, and that if they kept talking someone would inevitably put their foot in their mouth—probably him. He let it drop and enjoyed a companionable silence. Though, really, the word 'enjoy' didn't do it justice. The company was wonderful and the implied forgiveness had left him feeling a bit like someone had injected him with helium. Well, figuratively speaking.

So, fine. He wasn't a fighter—that had been obvious long before day one of Beacon. In fact he was pretty sure that he could pinpoint the exact date he'd found that out as the one when, as a four year old, he'd picked up a toy sword and promptly lost a duel to a cardboard box with an angry Grimm face drawn on it in sharpie.

That was fine. He was smart, and he could still be useful in coming up with ideas or in doing research. There was more to hunting than swinging weapons around—he could remember the Grimm's weaknesses, he was researching quite a few oddly specific recipes for setting off explosions with raw Dust, and he knew about history and how past wars had started and maybe even how they might be prevented. He was scared, often so much so that he could barely move or think or breathe, but he'd stood his ground this last time. He wasn't going to leave his team again. He could be... well, he could be the plastic floatie. Their caution, when they dove headfirst into danger. And that, too, had worth.

* * *

Weiss hated being injured. For one thing, it turned a five- _hour_ walk from the Grimm's den to the White Fang base into a two- _day_ walk back. It also meant her Aura wasn't as strong as it normally would be—it was busy healing. But what stung worse than the gash itself was the fact that she'd been stuck in the center of the formation like a civilian the rest of them were trying to escort.

"You can still help," Jaune pointed out. "Your semblance is useful for support, and I get the feeling we're going to need that."

"I could _help_ by killing Grimm," Weiss snapped.

"Well, yeah, but not without making your leg worse."

He had a point, but honestly? After hiking somewhere around fifteen miles on the stupid thing, the damage was probably done. It wasn't infected—thanks more to her Aura than the ad-hoc balaclava bandage—but it would scar, badly. Camille had told her this with the air of someone delivering earth-shattering news, which made Weiss wonder if she'd somehow missed the one over her eye.

She opened her mouth to argue some more, but Blake gave her a pleading look and she dropped it. Mostly. She had to stay behind Cardin, but she did _not_ have to like it. Or refrain from complaining about it.

Their escort was the same Huntsman that had dealt with Jaune and Cardin. Weiss probably would have guessed that even if he hadn't told them—he had the look of someone who had just mediated a lot of petty squabbling, a mixture between frustration and disappointment. His name was Mr. Corduroy, and he irked her for reasons that probably stemmed from a bad first impression with her two teammates. Namely, he treated all four of them like they had no idea what they were doing.

"I'm going to be hands-off to start," he said, resting the end of his massive kite shield on the ground as he talked. "But this mission is... a bit advanced. There are a lot of Grimm in there, and most of them are Creeps. They're known for—"

"Burrowing," Weiss said.

Corduroy looked a bit taken aback by that. "Well, yes. That means they _might_ come through walls and floors. The rest are Beowolves, from what the scout told us. Remember that this is challenging but not time sensitive, so if you four need to you can always just retreat, regroup elsewhere in the woods, and then go back in when you're ready. I'll be right outside the whole time, and I'll be in contact on Jaune's scroll if you need me. If any of your Auras hit red, you're _out._ That goes double for you." He pointed at Weiss. She glowered at him.

Blake looked a bit irritated, too, but she didn't say anything. Corduroy pointed out the front door. Weiss tried to hide her limp as she followed Jaune towards the entrance.

It was impressive. Even having grown up in the Schnee manor, she could appreciate the architecture—there was a set of wide wooden double-doors, beautifully carved, sheltered by stone columns. Jaune led the way inside, followed by Cardin and Weiss. Blake brought up the rear.

The inside was dim, lit only by stained-glass windows that dyed the interior of the entrance hall a thousand colors. Under their feet, a slightly moth-eaten carpet stretched from wall to wall. The moment they walked through the door, they were surrounded by empty suits of armor. Weiss eyed them suspiciously as they passed.

Jaune pushed open a door at the end of the entrance hall, one that led into a corridor wide enough for all four of them to walk side-by-side. Deep shadows clung to the walls in regular intervals, pooling between iron chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. Weiss scanned them for any sign of the Grimm, but they were empty.

"Somehow it's creepier when nothing tries to kill me," Jaune observed. "Maybe I've been hanging out with Brine and Raspberry too much."

"You're not wrong." Weiss tightened her grip on her rapier. "If they aren't here, it means they're congregating somewhere. Creeps aren't usually intelligent enough to set traps, but if one of them is really old..."

Cardin snorted derisively and shouldered his mace. "Are you three girls done fretting, or can we get on with it and find something to kill?"

"Cardin," Jaune warned.

"Would you prefer we stopped attempting strategy?" Weiss demanded.

She must have struck a nerve, because Cardin whirled around and hefted his mace. "Stop," Jaune ordered. "Both of you. No arguing until we're done here, got it?"

Cardin muttered something under his breath, but he obeyed. Weiss glared at the backs of both their heads. It didn't occur to her until minutes later to be impressed that Jaune had gotten his partner to actually listen to him.

"I'm not hearing anything," Corduroy said through Jaune's scroll. "What's going on?"

"We haven't run into any Grimm yet," Jaune reported. "Just a lot of empty space."

There was silence for a moment. Then, eventually, "That's not good."

"It's boring," Cardin complained.

Corduroy ignored him completely. "We sent a scout in about two weeks ago, just after the place was overrun, and he said the Grimm were fairly spread out. We've been expecting them to move on since they've killed everyone inside, but it wouldn't have happened this quickly."

"They're gathering together, then," Weiss said.

"Probably. But what could—"

"Survivors." Blake had stopped walking, and now that Weiss knew what to look for she thought she could see her bow twitching. "That's the only reason I can think of that they'd ignore us like this."

"Wait." Jaune looked about ready to panic. "How would someone still be alive in here? Corduroy said it's been two weeks!"

"We'll have to find out," Weiss said. "We could split up in partner pairs to look for groups of Grimm."

Blake shook her head. "There'd be no way to keep you from fighting in close quarters like that. Your leg—"

"Isn't hurt badly enough that I can't fight if it means saving someone!"

"Stay together." Corduroy's voice was clipped, as if he was trying very hard not to sound anxious. "I'm going in through the back to help search. You four keep doing what you're doing. Alert me if you get into trouble, or if you find someone."

"Right." Jaune took a few deep breaths. "If you guys were civilians stuck here during a Grimm attack, where would you go?"

Weiss didn't have to imagine anything—she'd been drilled on almost exactly that as a child. It was the White Fang rather than the Grimm, but the principal was the same. "There should be a panic room somewhere," she said. "Maybe the basement?" That was where it was in the Schnee manor, anyway.

"Let's look for stairs, then." Jaune broke into a run. Weiss could match his pace, though the effort of it sent spikes of pain up and down her bad leg. Blake shot her a worried glance, but she wasn't going to complain about it now when someone might be under attack.

They rushed down one hallway, turned a corner, and encountered their first Grimm. It was a lone Creep, shuffling through a doorway. The monster turned to look at them. Jaune, the one at the front of their group, rushed forward and slashed at it. The attack was inelegant and clumsy, but he did manage to kill it. When they looked at where it had been going before it saw them, they found the stairwell.

Weiss quickly found that descending stairs was _much_ harder than walking on level ground. About halfway down she lost her grip on the railing and all her weight came down on her bad leg. She cried out, then caught hold of the wall and steadied herself. Blake gave her another _look,_ which she ignored.

The foot of the staircase led into a much more dimly lit section of the castle, which was saying something. Weiss almost asked Blake if she could see anything threatening, then remembered that Jaune and Cardin were there and kept her mouth shut. They passed more suits of armor and a tasteful painting. Then, without warning, Blake hissed, "I hear them." The four of them all went on high alert and crept forward, weapons at the ready. Around the next corner, they finally saw the Grimm.

A whole horde of Creeps was massed in the hallway, with the occasional Beowolf sticking up out of the press. They were arrayed in front of a huge metal door, like one you might see at a bank vault, and the Creeps in the front were busy trying to burrow through or around it. The walls of the panic room looked like concrete, webbed through with steel reinforcement—that was probably the only thing that had protected whoever was inside this long. They were on their last legs, though, cracked and pitted and gnawed almost all the way through in places.

"We found the Grimm, they're in the basement," Jaune told Corduroy. Then he raised his shield and glanced in her direction. "Weiss! Can you hit them with some fire?"

She shook her head. "I don't know how insulated that room is. We might bake whoever's inside. Same problem with energy. Ice or earth would block the way, which we don't want to do unless the fight goes sour."

"Okay." He smashed his sword and shield together, and the Creeps turned towards them as one mass. "Hey! Come get us!"

He, Cardin, and Blake spread out to cover the hallway, with Weiss behind them. Irritated, she started forming glyphs here and there to cover openings in their defenses. Most of those went to Cardin—Jaune had his shield and Blake had skill.

Cardin was flailing at the masses of Creeps, but he wasn't killing them quickly enough. They were piling up in front of him, pushing him back, and Jaune and Blake had to follow to keep them from getting through. Weiss spun the chamber of her rapier to energy and formed a haste glyph under his feet. He made a little yelp of surprise as it took effect that she probably would have laughed at if someone's life wasn't on the line, then started mowing the monsters down.

"Almost there!" Jaune shouted.

The haste glyph on Cardin ran out. He stumbled, and one of the Beowolves lunged forward and shot past him. Blake turned as if to attack it. "Stay there," Weiss snapped. A claw swept down toward her face, and she ducked under it. Her leg buckled, but she managed to shove the point of her rapier through the monster's throat before she fell. Her knees hit the floor. It was almost like she imagined being struck by lightning must feel—an instant of paralysis followed by shooting pain. Then it passed, and she lurched clumsily to her feet.

"Fine," she gritted out, when she noticed Blake and Jaune sneaking worried glances at her. "Focus on the Grimm."

There weren't that many left, now. Four Creeps, one Beowolf. Weiss didn't really need to do anything more, but she pinned down one of the Creeps with a glyph so that Cardin could kill it without looking quite so idiotic. Jaune took the Beowolf. The rest were picked off by Blake.

In the end they stood together in an empty hallway, panting. Weiss was trying to hide the shaking in her bad leg. The cut probably hadn't reopened, she still had her Aura, but it did _not_ appreciate being jarred like that. Finally Jaune got enough of his breath back to say, "Clear."

"Excellent," Corduroy said. He sounded like he was trying hard to hide his surprise. "I'll be with you—" There was a muffled crash from the other end of the line, and Weiss thought she could hear its echo somewhere above them. "—soon as I can. Geist."

"A what?" Jaune asked.

"Possession Grimm," Weiss answered automatically. "Animates rocks, tree branches... suits of armor, sometimes."

Blake frowned. "Port hasn't covered them, yet."

"They're more common in Mistral. I saw a mention of them later in the textbook." She hadn't.

Cardin groaned. "Enough of the nerdy crap and let's get on with it!"

They approached the vault door. The Creeps had gnawed almost the whole way through it, as well as most of the wall. Weiss shuddered at the thought of being trapped underground in a small room as the Grimm slowly and methodically chewed through steel and concrete. Never sleeping, never resting. Probably making noises at night.

Jaune reached out and knocked on the door—shave-and-a-haircut, of _all_ things. "Um, hello?" he called out. "You're safe now, okay? We're Hunters-in-training, the Grimm out here are gone. Can we come in?"

There was only silence.

"We just want to get you out of here," he tried. "That's good, right? You can come with us to Vale, then take an airship somewhere else if you want."

Blake moved over to the wall, and hissed in a breath at what she saw. Weiss leaned over her shoulder to look. There was a hole about the size of a grapefruit where the Grimm had tunneled all the way through. Inside she could see metal shelves full of food, empty cans scattered across the floor, bare concrete walls, and a haphazard pile of books that looked like they'd been knocked over. In the far corner lay a bundle of blankets. Jaune knocked again, and they twitched.

"This place won't hold up much longer," Blake said gently. "Please, can you come out?"

Another twitch. A rustling of cloth. A head poked out from under the blankets—a _small_ head, long-haired and red-faced from crying. _A child._

"I don't know how to open it," she said, sniffling.

"I can help with that," Weiss said. "Can you look at the other side of the door for me?"

The child nodded, then moved towards the door. She kept the blankets wrapped around her as she went—they highlighted just how tiny she was. She couldn't have been more than six or seven. "There's a wheel," she said.

"Good. It's designed so that you don't need a lot of strength to turn it."

"Which way?"

Weiss bit her lip, trying to remember. The one she'd drilled with had been different—there'd been a series of levers that changed how the weight of the door was distributed, all very high tech and, in her opinion, likely to malfunction at inconvenient times. "Right," she guessed.

There was a scraping noise and then a click. She and Blake left the hole in the wall and came up behind the others. Jaune gave the door a gentle push. Nothing happened. Then he shoved harder and it began to slide open. Standing in the room just behind it was the child, shivering despite the blankets. There was a space heater in one corner of the room she hadn't been able to see before, but it obviously wasn't working.

Something was odd, though. The blankets behind her were shifting around, making rumpling noises. When the girl took a little step back, Weiss caught a glimpse of the reason—a bushy raccoon tail, one that was twitching nervously.

Cardin made a noise of disgust. "We rushed for this?"

"Cardin!" Jaune shouted, incredulous. "What's wrong with you?!"

"What? I'm just _saying—"_

The little girl retreated into one corner of the room, squishing herself between the shelves and one wall. Weiss moved towards her, and she whimpered in fear. Blake cast a glance at Cardin, then chewed on her lip. Slowly, hands shaking, she reached up and tugged her bow loose. Jaune gaped. Cardin choked on his own spit mid-argument.

"It's okay," she said softly, taking small steps forward. "We're not going to hurt you."

The little girl curled up, hands around her knees, but she let her approach. Blake knelt down in front of her. She reached out, stopping with her hand outstretched. When the girl didn't flinch away, she laid it on her shoulder. "What's your name?"

"Dahlia."

"Well, Dahlia, how about we get out of here?" The little girl lunged forward and wrapped both arms around Blake's neck. She shifted her arm under her knees and stood up, with Dahlia still clinging to her.

Weiss was staring. Warmth bloomed in her stomach just looking at them, like she'd swallowed a mouthful of hot tea. She didn't want to call it _adorable,_ because they were still in a castle full of Grimm and this was serious, but it _was._

She'd never been very good with children, but she tried to imagine what Winter might have done when they were younger. "Don't mind Cardin," she found herself saying conspiratorially. "Nobody likes him very much." She mustered a smile. Dahlia stared at her for a moment, face half-hidden in Blake's hair. Then she reached out and poked Weiss in the face.

"Hey!" she yelped. Blake had the nerve to laugh at her.

Unfortunately, Cardin chose that moment to remind them of his existence by jabbing a finger at Blake. "I'm not working with _that."_

She turned so that her body was between Dahlia and him, glaring. Weiss stepped in front of them. "Your petty issues can wait, Cardin."

"Petty? _Petty?!"_ His face went a nasty shade of burgundy. Then his eyes widened. "Hang on. You _knew,_ didn't you?!" Behind them, Dahlia whimpered.

"Yes," she said, "I did, and you can do all the yelling and carrying on you like, _later."_

He reached out and shoved her. _Normally_ she would have just laughed at him, but when she tried to step back and keep her balance her leg flared up and she stumbled.

"That's enough." Jaune's voice was sharp, cutting through their argument like the crack of a whip. "Cardin? If you won't work with Blake, you're going to have to leave Beacon. I'm not on your side, Weiss is obviously not on your side, and the administration won't be on your side. So. Leave, or deal with it. I don't care. As long as you focus, _right now,_ because if something happens to us or that kid because _you_ are acting like a jerk..." he left the implied threat hanging. Weiss wondered if that was because he couldn't think of anything in time.

She half-expected Cardin to try to shove her again, or punch Jaune. Instead he gritted his teeth, seething, and muttered, "Fine. Later."

Dahlia was whimpering. Blake rubbed her back and said, "It's okay. We've got you." She didn't seem convinced—Weiss couldn't exactly blame her. Still, even Cardin was probably an improvement considering she'd been surrounded by Grimm for the past... _god, two weeks?_

"Let's go," Weiss suggested. "The sooner, the—"

 _Scrape._ She froze in midsentence, then slowly panned her head down to stare at the ground. A low rumble started somewhere below them. Then, part of the floor trembled. Flakes of concrete fell away, and Weiss could hear them skittering down an incline. They kept going for a long, _long_ time.

"Tunnels," she breathed. "They weren't just coming in from the _sides,_ they—"

"We gotta go," Jaune said. "Now!"

But there was an opening in the floor of the hallway outside, too. Creeps poured out of it, and behind them... black scales, red eyes, foot-long fangs. A King Taijitu. Jaune leapt forward and slammed the vault door shut. Even as he did so, shuffling noises began to emanate from the hole in the floor. Weiss twisted her hand and closed it with a glyph, just in time for the thick skull of a Creep to bounce off it.

"Mr. Corduroy!" Jaune shouted. "There were more of them, further underground! We're stuck in a panic room with a little girl, and there's a hole in the floor they're trying to get through!"

"Damn it. I'm still—ah!—still caught up. Give me five minutes."

Five minutes. Weiss flinched as something bashed into the underside of her glyph. A clawed arm thrust itself through the hole in the wall. Five minutes was a _long time,_ in these circumstances.

Dahlia began to wail.


	26. Getting to Know You [11]

Blake was a fucking Faunus.

There were Grimm outside, Grimm that wanted to get inside and make _his_ insides into outsides, but Cardin had trouble focusing on that in the wake of finding out that _Blake_ was a _Faunus._

It was unnerving, really, that all it took was a little bow on her head to hide what she was. Maybe more unnerving how well she _acted_ human. Moody and self-righteous and annoying, maybe, but still human. And Weiss had _known?_ He figured that, numerous other faults not withstanding, at least she wouldn't side with one of those freaks.

The wall shook as something rammed into it from the other side. Weiss made a small, pained noise when another Grimm did the same thing to the barrier she'd put up. Cardin wondered how much time out of those five minutes had gone by—ten seconds? Thirty? Probably not thirty.

"You need to get down now, okay?" Blake told the little brat she was carrying. It was still wailing and carrying on, like that was going to help them keep it from getting _eaten_. "Come on." The thing clung to her, kicking its little legs and grabbing fistfuls of her shirt as she tried to put it on the ground. "I'll be right here, I _promise,_ but I might need to fight and I can't do that while I'm carrying you."

She was wasting her time. Logic didn't work on Faunus, and it _definitely_ didn't work on children, so that was two strikes against her.

"I'll take her," Jaune offered. "Is that okay, Dahlia?"

"No!"

"You sure? You can sit on my shoulders if you want."

_"No!"_

There was a sharp, high pitched noise. Cardin looked around for the source, then realized it was the glyph plugging up the hole in the floor. Grimm were teeming on the other side, pushing upward with all their strength, and Weiss... didn't look so good. Her face was pale, and strands of hair were sticking to her forehead.

"If you faint," Cardin told her, "I'm going to—"

"Not helping," Jaune snapped. Then he turned back to the kid and lowered his voice. "Hey, can I tell you a secret? I'm not actually that great with this." He tapped his sword hilt. "Blake is—she's super fast and she has _two_ swords. But me?" He hefted his shield. "I'm way better with one of these. So I can protect you, and Blake can fight the Grimm. Okay?"

The little Faunus loosened her death grip a fraction. Then the wall splintered, and she squeaked and buried her face into Blake's neck. Bits of concrete rained down into the panic room, and Cardin could see the head of a Beowolf poking through the opening. He jabbed his mace at it.

"Don't use any Dust," Weiss said quickly.

"I'm not _brain-dead."_

"Really?"

"Look, _princess—"_

"How about you _don't_ distract her?" Blake suggested.

"I'm not taking orders from the likes of _you!"_

Another crack, and another rain of concrete. At the same time, Weiss lurched and landed heavily on the ground, breathing hard. The glyph started to make noises like splintering glass.

Blake made a last attempt at getting the leech off her, then shook her head. "This isn't going to work. Jaune, can you—?"

"On it." He hurried over to the wall, then yelped as a jet black arm thrust through the opening and almost scratched him across the face. Cardin came up next to him. He gripped his mace hard so that it wouldn't shake. He wasn't scared or anything, but he was high on adrenaline and really, it was hard not to be jittery when your life depended on both a girl with a hole in her leg and a boy you'd seen trip over his own feet more times than you could keep track of.

"How—" Weiss started to say, before she cut off with a gasp. "How long?"

"It's been about two minutes," Blake replied.

"Oh." More tinkling crystalline sounds. They were coming faster now, at a higher pitch. It reminded him of the countdown beeping of a bomb.

Then, a chunk of concrete split off the wall and landed on the floor, shattering into a million pieces. In the space behind it was a black snake's head, red-eyed and hissing. Jaune shoved his shield into the gap. "Uh, Mr. Corduroy?"

"Talking at me isn't gonna make me faster, kid!"

There came a sound like someone smashing a wineglass against a wall. Cardin chanced a glance behind him and swore. The glyph had broken, and one of the Creeps was halfway out of the tunnel. Weiss twisted her hand and another appeared around its middle. It writhed and snapped at her, and she didn't even move when it got a mouthful of her sleeve. Blake kicked it away, then stumbled when it tried to bite down on her foot. The kid started howling again.

Cardin took two steps toward the thing, wound up—

"Careful," Blake said. "Don't strain the glyph."

He wouldn't have to worry about that if Weiss would just _hold_ the stupid thing right, but he shifted his grip so that the full weight of the swing came sideways at the Grimm's head. It went limp as its skull caved in. Another one came up and started hammering on the underside of the barrier.

"Look at the back wall, okay?" Blake told the kid. "Don't look at the Grimm. I'm going to take this arm back, but I've still got you." She disentangled her hand and grabbed one of the metal shelving units. Even when she leaned all the way back, it didn't budge. "They're bolted to the wall." She drew her sword, her mouth set in a grimace.

"Cardin," Jaune gritted out. "Little help?" He was braced against his shield, arms flung out to either side. His whole body was shaking with the effort. Cardin crossed the room again—seriously though, was _no one_ in this group capable of plugging a hole on their own?—and leaned his shoulder against the shield. Together, they held it against the wall. They could hear the thing hissing on the other side.

"How... how long?" Weiss asked again.

"Just hold out for, like..." Jaune trailed off. "Probably somewhere between thirty and ninety seconds."

"I don't... I don't think I can."

"It's only a little longer," he pleaded. "You can do this!"

"I _can't!"_

Little shimmers of white were flickering up her forearms. Cardin felt a chill go down his back—they had seconds left. Too many enemies below. They'd be fine, though—Corduroy was coming back, and they'd think of something else to block the hole with, and... and they couldn't just _die!_

Jaune rushed forward, kneeling next to Weiss. "Hey, just a little more okay? Take it second by second. And... and when this is over we'll owe you big time."

Cardin's back bowed forward when Jaune moved away, but he held the shield against the wall. Vertebrae popped. If there were two of him—and two shields, obviously—they wouldn't be having this problem in the first place. "If you let us die..." he growled. Blake took a step forward, raising the sword, then remembered the kid. She'd managed to get the limpet to let go of her neck and wrap herself around one leg instead.

Weiss mumbled something that was probably supposed to be a quip. Another flicker of light at her fingertips. Jaune grabbed one of her wrists. More light flared to life. Not the ripples of a dying aura this time, but something brighter. Jaune's hands were glowing. _Jaune's hands were glowing!_

"What the fuck are you doing?" Cardin demanded.

"I don't know!" he yelped. His whole body was lit up now, and it was spreading to Weiss. She blinked a few times, then straightened. Her ragged breathing slowed. The glyph stopped wobbling.

Cardin was so busy watching them that he let his grip slip for just an instant. He was bent forward, the shield digging into his back, and a black head slid into the room. Immediately he pushed back against the shield, but by then it was too late. The Grimm was squirming through the open space, its slick dark scales sliding through the gap row by row. Blake lurched forward, unbalanced by the leech on her leg, and stabbed it straight in the eye. Ichor spattered over his face, and the monster's shriek nearly deafened him. The kid started blubbering again, _of course._ He gave the thing another shove, digging the shield into its neck to halt its advance. His legs were straining, his back aching, but an odd sort of calm came over him. He went utterly still, not even breathing, all of his effort focused on not giving an inch. He'd be _damned_ if this thing got in when he was holding the door. Shield. _Whatever._

Blake slashed at the snake again as it struggled and hissed. The other eye was soon blinded as well, and it shook its head back and forth with rage. It tried to sink its teeth into him, but it was blocked—partly by his Aura, and partly by his teammate stabbing the roof of its mouth to get it away from him. His vision started growing fuzzy around the edges—he still hadn't drawn a breath. It felt like his chest was being constricted. He would've looked down to check if there was a giant snake wrapped around him, but he couldn't move his head.

Then, there was a _snick_ from somewhere outside, and the monster went limp. The Faunus kid let out a last hiccuping cry, then quieted. More noises in the hallway, the clash of weaponry and the death squeals of Creeps. Someone knocked on the door.

"Open up," Corduroy ordered. Cardin moved, lurching forward and catching himself on one knee, panting for breath. It was Blake that opened the door. The Huntsman walked in and stared in naked shock at Jaune and Weiss. They were both glowing now, and there was a bright blue glyph spinning in the opening in the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked, sounding almost awestruck.

Jaune, by contrast, looked like he'd just dropped a live grenade and didn't know where it had gone. "I don't know!" he wailed.

"Come on." Blake left the room, hefting the kid onto her hip. "We have to go, _now."_

Cardin followed, then Jaune. Weiss backed up to the door slowly, waiting for the last possible moment before she let go of the glyph and they started to run. The five—six? Surely the Faunus kid didn't count, and in that vein he could probably say four. Anyway, they all sprinted headlong down the hall, up the stairs, and through the castle. Corduroy was in the front, killing anything that came near them without breaking stride. Soon they were out in the late afternoon sunshine, pelting across the overgrown lawn and into the woods.

It was only after they were several minutes away that Corduroy said, "That's far enough," and slowed to a halt. They stood there for a while, struggling to get their breath back, listening to the wind in the trees. Then Blake turned to Weiss.

"Your leg," she said. "You just ran on it."

Sure enough, under the bandage there was nothing but a jagged scar, pink and inflamed. Cardin stared at it— _that_ came from a falling rock? Looked more like a hacksaw, but whatever.

"What did I just do?" Jaune asked.

"That's what _we_ want to know," Weiss reminded him. "Though I suppose a thank-you is in order."

"Uh... It was a team effort?"

"As for what you just did..." Corduroy looked him over. He'd stopped glowing, and didn't even seem all that tired. "I think you were sharing Aura."

"But..." he looked around, like a little kid in a strip mall halfway through realizing Mommy wasn't holding his hand anymore. "But how could I do that? I mean, wouldn't I be just as tired as Weiss?"

"Firstly," she said, sounding a bit annoyed, "I would've been able to hold it longer if I hadn't already been recovering from an injury. It's irritating, but true. Secondly, you have an absolutely _absurd_ amount of Aura."

He blinked. "Wait, what?"

"You didn't even know?" Cardin snorted. "Why do you think it keeps taking people so long to beat you down? They have to get through your thick skull first."

"It took something like a third of mine to unlock yours," Blake added, nodding at him.

"And you got chewed on by three Beowolves and didn't end up with a scratch." Corduroy clapped him on the shoulder. "Congratulations, kid—you're not as useless as you look."

"Hey!"

"Really, though." Corduroy's face turned sober. "I was expecting to have to babysit you four. But you all came through in a big way just now, and..." he trailed off. Apparently he'd just noticed the tiny Faunus trying to strangle Blake. And the ears on her head.

"Well. That's new."

Blake backed up a step.

Corduroy put his hands up. "No worries, I'm just surprised." He cast a glance at Weiss, then Cardin. _"Very_ surprised. She was in the panic room?"

Jaune nodded. "We think she was there the whole two weeks. There were a lot of empty cans." The kid hid in Blake's neck and whimpered.

"Well." He heaved a sigh. "You're safe now, er..."

"Dahlia," Blake supplied.

"Dahlia. Right." He ran a hand through his hair. "Damn. There's people I can contact, I'll handle all that stuff—happens more often than we'd like." He stepped forward to take the kid, but she just clung tighter and started to cry again. _Every five seconds, I swear..._

"She can stay with me a little while longer," Blake suggested. "We have to debrief anyway."

Jaune nodded. "Yeah, we're not in a huge rush."

Corduroy shook his head, as if in disbelief. "I'll put in a good word with your professor, mark my words. This was a sh—ah, unfortunate turn of events, and you guys didn't sign up for it. But you came through, and you held your own, and I respect that. Above and beyond. _Damn."_

Cardin glared at him—he wasn't sure he wanted this idiot's praise after their _last_ mission—but he couldn't help standing a little straighter. Damn _straight_ they hadn't signed up for that. He was never letting Jaune drag him into the woods again.

* * *

Since the last time she and Russel and Nora had tried talking to Velvet, Yang had gotten in the habit of asking her if she wanted company. Not all the time, she didn't want to be annoying. She also tried to make it as obvious as possible that she was totally neutral on whether or not she took them up on the offer. It was just a matter of whether _Velvet_ wanted people around. They could and did entertain themselves, but on the other hand they wouldn't mind at all if she _did_ want them around, and...

Russel kept making fun of her for it, or more specifically for how uncharacteristically _awkward_ she was every time she asked. She let him. It was important to her not to impose, but also not to just turn around and do nothing. Ruby had similar issues when they were younger, and... well, at the time it had seemed very simple. Bully hurt Ruby. Bully break an arm. Bully _not_ hurt Ruby anymore. Except then people started avoiding the both of them, and it was obvious that the isolation bothered her little sister more than a few harsh words ever would. So she scaled it back, a little, and stopped leaving bruises big enough to bring to the administration so that her dad wouldn't have an early heart attack.

All that had been a long time ago, but after Ruby scolding her over how she'd handled Sky it was unusually sharp in her mind. She wanted to protect the people close to her, but she'd made a resolution to wait until she was _asked_ as often as possible. It seemed like a good idea to practice that with Velvet.

So, with all that in mind, she'd started asking every few days, casually and politely, if Velvet wanted company. And she'd gotten so used to her saying no that she had to repeat the _yes_ twice before Yang actually got it.

"Oh," she said. "Right! See you at lunch, then!"

She very deliberately stopped herself from making a big deal out of it or prying about why Velvet had said yes today of all days. She also wasn't sure why she bothered when Russel would probably ask point-blank anyway.

All that aside, she had sort of forgotten about Dove. Nora and Russel had agreed to go when she asked them, but that had been right in the wake of him being... well... kind of an ass, honestly. She didn't _want_ to go off to lunch without him, though. So... here she was. Standing outside their dorm room like a bouncer.

"What are you doing now?" he asked, the second he saw her.

"We need to talk. Wait, don't run—I'm just asking you if you can come to lunch with us. I offered to sit with Velvet, and she said yes, so..."

"If this is another intervention—"

"It's not," she snapped. "Because we asked Velvet and she said she didn't want to do that. So it's just us sitting with her and keeping Ermine away."

"Oh." He heaved a sigh. "Look, I'd really rather not."

"You don't have to, but I'm going to."

He got a sour look at that. "Fine, then. I'll go."

"There are conditions, though."

"What conditions?" he asked, suspicious.

"...I don't really know how to phrase this except for don't be a jerk. We're going over there to make sure she _isn't_ being harassed by people for no reason, so if you start going off on her—"

"I'm not going to _go off_ on anyone." His voice took on more bite than she'd ever heard in it before. "I don't _do_ that."

"I know." Yang heaved a sigh. "Look, I get that this is a point of contention and it's kind of awkward, but I'm really just trying to make sure that Velvet's okay. Can you promise you'll think about that before you say anything?"

"Yes, fine." He didn't look happy, but he didn't look angry either. Annoyed and a bit frustrated, maybe, but not angry.

"Okay. Cool." She held out a hand. "No hard feelings, okay? And we can eat at our usual table tomorrow, it's just the one day."

He nodded. "Fine. I'm sorry if I was a bit... curt, the other day." _That's one way of putting it, yeah._

Before they left, Yang told Nora to go ahead and warn Velvet, and come back and shoo Dove away if she didn't want to talk to him. It was all very bizarre, and not in a fun way—she wasn't used to trying to protect people she liked from _other_ people she liked. Dove would come around, or she was reasonably sure he would, but in the meantime it made things... messy.

Nora rejoined their group about halfway to the cafeteria and gave a discreet nod—meaning she'd mentioned him to Velvet and she hadn't wanted him to stay behind. She wasn't hard to find once they walked in. One of ERMN was standing up on a bench, laughing, and another was giving the guy next to him a pair of bunny ears. From there it was just a quick scan around their line of sight to find her.

Yang waved as they walked over, and without coordinating it deliberately they all took benches between her and ERMN. "Hi, Velvet," Yang said, grinning at her.

"Hey!" chirped Nora.

"Yo." This from Russel, naturally.

Dove fidgeted on the bench, said, "Hello," and put on a very fixed looking smile.

"Hello." Velvet gave him a nervous glance, her left ear twitching almost imperceptibly.

For once, it was _Russel_ who made things less awkward. Mostly because he brought up the Vytal tournament, which in Beacon pretty much guaranteed an easy conversation full of exclamations about how cool it was going to be, or discussions on potential strategies, or just excitement over the food and games. If she'd thought he'd done it on purpose she might have given him a high-five. Maybe she would later anyway, positive reinforcement was good.

Of course, as soon as she thought that he had to go and ruin it. "Why'd you suddenly want us over here today, anyway?" he asked, with all the subtlety and sensitivity of a bulldozer.

Velvet didn't seem to mind. She just glanced over at ERMN and winced. "They said some things in front of my team leader, and she was going to skip class to come here. I didn't want to bother her, and since you'd offered..."

"Makes sense," Yang said.

Dove shifted uncomfortably. Nora gave him a look—halfway between sympathetic and exasperated—and quickly changed the subject.

Nearly forty minutes passed that way, and it actually went pretty well. Dove stopped squirming in his seat and started talking, though it was usually only to the three of them. Velvet seemed to relax a bit in their presence, and ERMN got bored and wandered off—hopefully not to look for another target, but Yang knew the type.

When they finally stood up to leave, Velvet thanked the four of them—even Dove—and headed on her way. BRYN was left standing around. Dove was trying not to look disgruntled, Yang was trying not to look like she'd noticed that he was disgruntled and she suspected Nora was doing the same, and Russel...

"So." He grinned. "Not a monster, eh?"

"Russ," Yang groaned.

At almost the exact same time, Dove snapped, "Russel!"

Nora looked between them, then at Russel, and started giggling.

"What?" he demanded. "What did I say?"

* * *

Ren didn't wake up expecting to spend his afternoon planning a break-in at an Atlesian embassy. Like many things in his life, it just sort of... happened. He used to think that was a side-effect of being friends with Nora, but she hadn't even touched this one.

It started with Sky, oddly enough. He was lying flat on his back on the floor, a textbook propped open on his stomach, when suddenly his brow furrowed and he wondered aloud, "What happened to Penny?"

Ruby perked up. "You're right! She was there when we were fighting Torchwick and then she just vanished!"

"She ran off while you were still dazed," Pyrrha told her. "We would have gone after her, but..."

"Oh." Ruby wilted a little.

Ren hesitated. Should he say something about what he'd seen? But what _had_ he seen? The skin of her shoulder had parted, and... there had been metal. A prosthetic? He'd never seen or heard of one that realistic, but that didn't mean it was impossible. It seemed like personal information, based on how she'd covered it up, so he decided he wouldn't mention it. How important could it really be?

Of course, Ruby then decided that they should track Penny down and make sure she was okay. That seemed reasonable, though their investigative methods probably needed some work. Even Sky couldn't think of anything better to do than wander around asking if anyone had seen a strange redhead with green eyes and a pink bow. They didn't have much else to go on—not even a last name.

That was how they ended up in Vale, with a surprisingly nice sketch of Penny courtesy of Sky. They found... predictable results.

"Penny, you said?" The shopkeeper took the sketch from them and squinted at it. "Got a last name?"

A man in a suit studied it for a solid minute. "Does she live here in Vale?"

"Where's she staying?"

"How old is she?"

"She here for the festival?

"You sure she's still in Vale?"

"Do you know... _anything_ about her?"

No one knew her just from a picture. And for some reason, nobody seemed to want to help them when they said they only had a name and a rough idea what she looked like. Something about not being sure if she was real. It also looked incredibly suspicious, he was sure.

Still, Ruby insisted they keep trying just a little longer. "She saved our lives!" she insisted. "The least we can do is look for her when she goes missing!" Ren agreed with her, though he wasn't sure it counted as missing when they'd never seen her before that day and she'd run away of her own accord.

So they kept walking around. Asking people. It was an endless parade of puzzled faces, irritated grumbles, and questions they didn't know the answers to. Until, suddenly, it wasn't.

"Who?" the woman snapped, glaring at them. She was obviously a soldier—she wasn't in armor, but she had on what looked like a dress uniform. Her brown hair was coiled into a tight bun, and the Atlesian crest was stamped across her right sleeve.

"Um, Penny?" Ruby inched back a little. "We met her in Vale a couple weeks ago and we just want to make sure she's okay."

"Haven't seen her." The woman's reply was too quick. Too brusque. She shoved the picture back at them. "You kids should go back home. It's getting late."

And with that, she stalked away.

"So... she was lying, right?" Sky said. "There's no way she wasn't lying."

"Why would she, though?" Pyrrha had been a bit lukewarm about the search—she, like Ren, wanted to find Penny but didn't really think this was going to work. Now, though, she seemed worried. "Unless..."

"She doesn't want us to find her," Ren finished. "And she isn't a relative or someone who could reasonably ask us to leave them alone."

Just like that, it went from a casual search to a rescue. Their only lead? Atlas.

There weren't many Atlesian soldiers in Vale. More would probably show up for the Vytal Festival, but that was still months away. That meant it wasn't hard to find the one place they'd have in common—the embassy. It wasn't a large building, and not much seemed to be going on in there. It was peacetime, and besides there was about to be a massive diplomatic event. They were in the calm before the storm, so to speak, if the storm was a party instead of a war.

Ren was nominated for the initial break-in before he realized there was going to be a break-in in the first place. "You can go in through that window, maybe," Ruby suggested, "and look around for guards. Then we'll follow you if you don't see any."

"Ruby," he said, hesitantly. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"But—" She threw up her hands and groaned. "I don't know, okay? What are we even supposed to do if we think Atlas kidnapped someone?!"

"I think reporting it is probably the official answer," Sky said. "Though... this close to the Vytal festival that could end badly. Plus no one would believe us."

Pyrrha gave the embassy a wary look. "What do you think the odds are that it's just one rogue kidnapper?"

"And she just _happened_ to be the Atlesian soldier we bumped into on the street?" Sky shrugged. "Well, there's probably somewhere around a million people in Vale, so literally one in a million odds. We talked to more than one person, though, so I'll say... million to fifty odds. Or, if I divide it out—"

"Okay, so it's probably not a coincidence," Ruby said. "And... we probably shouldn't break into the Atlesian Embassy."

Ren sagged with relief.

_"Unless—"_

"Um. Hello?"

All four of them whirled around. Penny was standing there, shifting uneasily from foot to foot and shooting nervous glances at the building behind her.

"Penny!" Ruby launched herself forward and glomped her. She didn't move an inch—Ren had seen _Nora_ bowled over by those hugs. "Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said. "What are you all doing here?"

"We were looking for you," Ren told her. "After all, the last time we saw you—"

Her eyes went wide. "Oh! Um. Yes, that." She backed up a few paces. "Well, I'm fine— _hic!_ —and you should leave now."

"But..." Sky hesitated. "Okay, well we found you because an Atlesian soldier looked _super_ shifty when we asked her about you. So... uh..."

"Is someone making you stay here?" Pyrrha asked.

"No! _Hic!_ I just want you to leave— _hic!_ —before someone comes." Penny stepped forward and began giving them what _looked_ like a little push. Ren stumbled into Pyrrha and Sky faceplanted on the ground. He tried to dig in his heels, but it was like resisting Nora after she'd gotten into the coffee.

"Okay, okay!" Ruby backed up a little. "We'll go... um, if you want us to." She looked down at the ground, dejected. "But... can I give you my scroll ID, so that you can contact us if you need us?"

Penny glanced nervously back at the embassy. "Yes," she decided. "I'd like that very much."

Ruby looked around. "Um, do you have a paper I can write it on, or...?"

"I will remember," Penny assured her.

"Um... okay."

A pair of soldiers emerged from the building just after Ruby finished rattling off the number and stood nearby, each in a different color armor—red and blue. Their arms were folded, their postures tense. Penny looked at them and took another step back. "I should go now. Please don't try to break in."

"Wait!" Ruby blurted. Then she hesitated. "Um. Thank you for saving our lives and everything. It was _awesome,_ I mean with the floating swords and—" she coughed. "Yeah."

Ren nodded agreement, and Pyrrha beamed.

"Thank you," Sky added. "Friend."

Penny seemed too taken aback by that to offer up any kind of response. She flailed an arm, blushing bright green—Ren had noticed that before, but taken in combination with everything else it was starting to seem _really odd_ —and then rushed off towards the waiting soldiers with a little squeak. It did a lot for his peace of mind when she grinned at the one in red before following them inside.

The four of them stood in silence for a minute.

"I don't think I like Atlas," Ruby decided.


	27. Getting to Know You [12]

Jaune and his team got back to Beacon seven and a half hours late.

The whole ordeal in the castle had actually been much shorter than expected—there were more Grimm, and more _powerful_ Grimm, but Corduroy had dealt with all of those. They'd also thought they would have to walk around hunting the monsters instead of having all of them clumped together in one place, which shaved off several hours of time on the mission and probably also several years of Jaune's life through sheer stress.

So the reason they were seven and a half hours late was less the mission itself, and more the aftermath. Apparently rescuing a child from a Grimm-infested castle involves a lot of paperwork. They didn't technically have to stay, Corduroy was the one who had to fill it out, but Dahlia didn't want Blake to go and Jaune didn't have the heart to push for it. They'd decided to stick around until she had someone else she seemed to trust and had managed to fall asleep. It had then turned out that she was _not_ on anything resembling a regular schedule. When she finally started nodding off, it was around two in the morning.

The end result was that they were late, Blake was drained, and Cardin was seething. He hadn't wanted to stay so long for a Faunus, and Jaune had eventually been forced to drag him away so that he wouldn't upset Dahila. Or the social worker. Also, he was pretty sure that one of his other teammates would have committed homicide and preferred to avoid that.

Anyway, instead of doing something sane like, say, studiously avoiding each other until they'd gotten a proper rest, they were all crammed into a small-ish airship together. Weiss and Blake took one side, and Jaune had to sit with Cardin on the other.

They took off in a heavy silence. Cardin was glaring at Blake, Weiss was glaring at Cardin, and Blake was mostly just studying her boots. Jaune laughed nervously. All three of them looked at him. "So," he said, rubbing at the back of his neck and trying to ignore the churning in his stomach. "Uh... a lot just happened. And I wanted to say that you're welcome to stay, Blake, and... um... stuff like that doesn't matter to me."

Blake nodded. "Thank you."

"Come on, seriously?!" Cardin demanded, getting halfway to his feet. Jaune pulled him back down.

 _"Yes,_ seriously! She saved your life like twice today!"

 _"She_ saved _me?_ Who was holding off the Grimm _alone?"_

"No one!" Jaune groaned, exasperated. "We worked together to not die, that was the _whole point!"_

"I'm not ignoring this," Cardin snarled back. "I'm not. You think I'm just gonna turn my back on her in a fight, now?"

"I can't believe you can say that with a straight face," Weiss said, her lip curling in disgust. "You _do_ remember almost knocking me out, don't you?"

"Well if you're too fucking _fragile_ to—"

A glyph erupted in the air in front of his chest, and sent him crashing back into the benches. He yelped as his head hit the wall, then slid to the ground with a heavy _thump._ Another glyph appeared underneath him and held him there.

"Woah!" Jaune raised his hands. "Hang on just a—"

"Go on," Weiss taunted. "Get up."

"Screw you!"

"Guys, we're on an airship!"

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you from all the way over here. You'll have to come over and—"

"You _bitch!"_

Jaune looked to Blake for help, but she made no move to break them up. Cardin's face was going purple with the effort of fighting the glyph, and in response it began spinning faster and faster. If he broke free, they were going to get into a brawl and someone was going to blow a hole in the ship.

He drew in a deep breath, cupped his hands to his mouth, and bellowed, _"Enough!"_

Cardin stopped struggling. Weiss froze.

"Weiss? Let Cardin go. Cardin? _Sit. Down."_

Weiss turned and glared at him. Then Blake reached over and touched her sleeve. "You should probably..."

She scowled. _"Fine."_ The glyph beneath Cardin dissipated, and he was left lying flat on his back, gasping. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and sat back down.

"Okay." Jaune took another deep breath. The shouting had definitely made his nausea worse. "Quick reminder that we're on an airship and that breaking it in a fight would be bad."

Both of them gave him dirty looks.

"Cardin? Blake's our teammate, so you're going to have to figure it out." His partner's face twisted into a snarl, but he didn't say anything. Jaune decided to take that as a reluctant yes.

"And, Weiss?" He tried not to wince when she glared at him. "I'm not going to tell you not to beat him up in Goodwitch's class if you want, but if we start having the same problems we did at the beginning of the year..." The glare was replaced with a grumpy scowl. That was definitely a reluctant yes.

"Blake?" Her ears perked up as she turned to look at him. He tried not to stare. "Just... thought I should repeat that you're our teammate and our friend—"

Cardin snorted. Jaune glared at him until he looked at his feet.

"—And we're happy to have you. Well. Most of us are, and the remainder will have to deal with it." She gave him a strange look, both eyebrows raised, then nodded. After that? Blessed silence.

They stepped out of the airship and onto Beacon's platform at about three-twenty. In the morning. Blake had to nudge Weiss awake, and Jaune... well, he'd very deliberately not eaten anything the few hours before the flight, which turned out to be a good idea. He was airsick, Weiss was groggy from waking up, Blake was a _Faunus_ and had been cooped up in a smallish cabin with, well, Cardin, who was even more foul-tempered than usual. No one was having a good day. Night. Morning? _Whatever._

Of course, instead of just keeping quiet, Cardin had to start an argument right out of the ship. "Who took a hacksaw to your leg, anyway?" he asked. Weiss and Blake both tensed.

"I _told_ you, I was hit by a rock."

Cardin snorted. "Ever heard of a joke?"

Jaune, sensing impending bickering, put both of his hands out and said, "No! It's _way_ too late for this." Weiss gave Cardin the stink-eye, but they didn't devolve into another fight.

To Jaune's surprise, Professor Goodwitch was there to meet them when they came up to the path that lead to Beacon. Even more shocking, she was _smiling._ At _them._

"P-professor!" Blake backed up a step, her hand moving to the top of her head.

"You needn't worry about that," Goodwitch said. "I already knew."

"What?!"

Her expression turned a bit rueful. "Ozpin is quite perceptive, and I like to believe that I am as well."

"And you didn't tell us?!" Cardin's hands balled up into fists. "What the fu—"

"Cardin, don't."

Jaune grabbed his shoulder. He shrugged it off, then stormed off towards Beacon. Goodwitch watched him go, frowning. "I can assure you," she told Blake, "That none of the staff will be anything but respectful."

Blake shifted uneasily, then nodded.

"On another subject, Gene spoke to me a few hours ago." _Gene?_ Oh. Maybe it made sense for Mr. Corduroy to have a first name. "He told me how your mission went," she said. Jaune winced.

"On the contrary, Mr. Arc." Was that a _smirk?_ "I'm impressed."

Weiss—the only one who still seemed to have the capacity for speech—managed a faint, "Thank you, Professor." Jaune just blushed scarlet and stared at his shoes.

"I'll expect a proper debriefing in the afternoon. Now, go to bed. You'll be released from classes tomorrow."

"What?" Weiss and Jaune both blurted in unison—her indignant, him elated.

Goodwitch's mouth twisted into some bizarre combination between smile and grimace. "For some reason," she said, "I find that I'm inclined to be lenient with students that complete their missions without... extracurricular risk to life and limb."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jaune noticed Blake's ear twitch.

"Go back to your dorms," she said, with another rare smile. "Sleep. You've done well." Jaune hesitated, then nodded vigorously and started the long plod back to the dorm.

On the way, his thoughts took a weird turn. Namely, he started putting things together. The twitch of Blake's ear when Goodwitch had mentioned not taking extracurricular risks, the way both of them had tensed when Cardin mentioned Weiss being hurt by a _saw_ —and it really _did_ look like that!—and how Weiss hadn't wanted to meet his eyes when she told him it had been a rock.

It didn't add up right. And that meant... had a _person_ done that? He didn't see how or why. They didn't have any enemies, did they? Would he even know? Ugh. _Just when I think I've figured out Cardin, Blake turns out to be a Faunus so he starts acting like a butt again, and I realize half my team is definitely hiding something._

He was pretty sure Dove and Ruby didn't have this much trouble with _their_ teams.

* * *

"You three are trouble, you know that?"

"Pfft." Nora patted her partner on the shoulder. "Shucks. What's with all the compliments today?"

"I'm buttering you up." Dove hefted a textbook out of his backpack. "With all the spy-movie footage we've been living for the past few weeks, I'm willing to bet we're all behind on homework. Except Russel."

"He did the homework?" Yang asked. She turned to him. "You did the homework?!"

"No." Dove smirked. "But he set the bar so low he's not behind."

Russel groaned. "What, and he doesn't get threatened with a jar for that?"

"Dove," Nora said, pointing a finger at him. "Be nice."

"My _point,"_ he said, turning his head (Nora caught the smirk before he could hide it), "is that we should have a study session in the library."

Nora felt her face scrunching up in disgust. But, on the other hand... "Fine," she groaned. "But only because it goes faster."

Russel shot her a betrayed look.

"What? It does!"

He grumbled all the way to the library. Yang laughed at him a few times—as much as Russel complained about getting dragged off to do his work, he _did_ actually tend to do more of it and faster. Plus, studying was way less of a pain with fun people around. Speaking of which...

"Where's Raspberry?" she asked.

"You mean, where's Ren?" Russel waggled his eyebrows. She folded up a paper plane and threw it at his head. It stuck in his hair and hung there, fluttering when someone passed by their table. "Same difference."

"They're probably in their dorm." Dove shrugged. "I think Ruby and Pyrrha wanted to greet Jaune when he got back."

"Uh." Yang pointed over their heads. "Something tells me they're a little late for that." Nora craned her neck over her shoulder and saw Blake running her thumb along the spine of a hardcover thicker than the width of her hand.

"Hey!" Nora waved. Blake jumped and turned around. Her gaze flicked to Russel's airplane-hat. She very deliberately looked back at Nora and did not ask. After frowning in their general direction for a moment, she wandered over.

"What is it?"

"You guys are back?" Yang asked.

Blake nodded. "Since about three thirty this morning."

"Jaune should go and say hi to Ruby and Pyrrha," Nora said. "They were kinda worried since you were supposed to get back by curfew last night."

"That's probably what he's doing now." She shrugged. "He wasn't there when I got up. The other two are still asleep, so..." she trailed off.

"Sit!" Nora hopped to her feet and gestured grandly at her chair.

"I wouldn't want to take your seat—"

"I'll steal another one."

Blake looked a bit awkward to be sitting with them. She'd brought the massive book—more of a tome, really—and had it propped open on her lap so as not to take up table space. Nora felt a little bad about all that, but... she _really_ wanted to know how the mission had gone.

"So...?" Russel made a 'Go on' gesture. The paper airplane waggled when he moved his head. "What made your team so late?"

She fidgeted uncomfortably. "We found a little girl. About... seven, I think? It took a long time for them to figure out where to send her, and we didn't really want to leave until all of that was settled."

Nora stared at her. On the other side of the table, she saw Yang's mouth pop open. "Wait... what? You mean, she was—"

"In the castle. There was a panic room in the basement."

Nora shivered involuntarily. Little girl left all alone after a Grimm attack? That rang a really nasty bell. "You guys saved her though, right?"

"Yeah." Blake was still grimacing.

"But...?" Russel prompted.

"But she's a Faunus, and with Cardin..."

"Oh." Yang winced. "Yeah, that wouldn't end well." Dove shifted his weight and stared intently at his textbook.

"She didn't want to come with us at first. He scared her."

Nora remembered that, too—the instinctive flinch from unfamiliar faces. "How'd you convince her you were safe?"

Blake ran her thumb along the edge of one of the pages of her giant book and said nothing.

"O- _kay,"_ Russel said, clapping his hands together. "But I think what we all _really_ want to know is whether any of you have any new scars!"

She didn't even react except to raise an eyebrow.

"Or just give me a dirty look, that works too." The paper airplane started to slip as he nodded, and he tilted his head to keep it in place.

"I told her a secret." Blake looked around the table, her gaze passing over each of their faces. She took a deep breath. "And that meant I had to show Cardin, so it's probably going to get out regardless. I'm a Faunus."

Nora did a double-take. "Wait, you mean..."

Russel burst out laughing and Yang lunged over to cover his mouth. "That's not as negative of a reaction as it sounds," she promised. "He's just laughing because—hey, ew!" She wiped her hand on his vest.

"You have a younger sister," he pointed out. "I'm ashamed of you for not seeing that coming."

"...Okay, but still!"

"And I'm laughing because—"

"Russel!" Nora tried to kick him, but missed. "You can't just blurt that out!"

Blake was giving them a really weird look, now. Nora groaned. "Okay, wait, let's start that over again—"

"They're acting like this because we've clashed over the issue," Dove said, not looking up from whatever he was writing.

Yang winced. "Um, yeah. That."

"But, uh..." Nora flailed an arm. "I'm glad you told us! Even if it was mostly because of Cardin probably telling everyone anyway."

"Is it going to be a problem?" Blake asked. Her tone was carefully aloof, but Nora could see the bow twitching. She was actually a bit surprised she hadn't noticed that before.

"Not from us," Yang said, smiling. "Promise."

Nora nodded agreement.

Russel shrugged. "I don't really care. Though, for the record—I was laughing because I thought the bow was ears the first time I saw you."

"You did?"

"For a solid hour, until I got another look." He spread his hands. "What can I say? I'm just that observant." Yang made a so-so gesture with her hand. "Hey!" A little smile played around the corners of Blake's mouth, and Nora resolved to do something nice for Russel later.

"Thank you," Blake said. Nora's hand snapped up in a salute. A second later, Yang and Russel both followed her lead. _Yes!_

Blake stood up to go, looking a lot less tense than when she'd sat down, but before she'd taken half a step Dove blurted out—of _all things—_ "Is that Viridian?"

"Is what the who?" Russel asked, shaking his head and sending the poor paper airplane fluttering to the floor.

Cautiously, Blake turned over the book. "It's a collection of short stories. Some of hers are in there."

"Short?" Yang stared at it. "You could use that thing as a paving stone."

"The stories are short, not the collection," Dove said absently. "And... well, you have... good taste."

Blake stood there for a moment, apparently at a complete loss for how to respond to that, then managed a small, "Thank you" and walked away.

Upon further consideration, Nora would have to do something nice for _all_ her teammates. Maybe she could persuade Ren to cook something?

* * *

Ruby didn't hear the knocking. In her defense, it was like four in the afternoon and she'd just gotten back from sparring, so she was doing some much-needed relaxing on her bed with her headphones blasting. Someone could probably have set off a bomb in the dorm without her noticing. Sky and Ren weren't there—apparently Sky wanted to ask Oobleck for clarification on something and needed moral support—so it was Pyrrha who had to get up and answer the door. The movement caught her attention. Just as she was debating whether or not to bother pausing her music and figuring out what was up, her partner opened the door and she saw Jaune standing in the hallway.

"You're alive!" she burst out, flinging off the headphones and leaping to the door. "When did you guys get back? Why didn't you tell us?!"

He grinned sheepishly. "I kind of forgot. We got back at like three in the morning. I just woke up half an hour ago."

"Ooh. Okay, yeah, that's fair."

"How did it go?" Pyrrha asked. Ruby guessed from the look on her face that she had similar doubts about... well... the Cardin thing. It was hard to picture him getting any better from a single mission. She wondered how she was supposed to say that it wasn't his fault and that no one could have done better without offending him.

It turned out she didn't have to. Jaune put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. "I got Cardin to follow orders! Mostly. I mean, then a bunch of other stuff happened that made things worse between him and the other two, and he and Weiss kinda-sorta got into a fight on the airship, but I'm pretty sure I can at least get him to work with us during sparring."

His grin started to look a little strained. "Sure, other problems are popping up, but at least they're getting smaller! Probably. Or I'm wrong and Blake and Weiss are part of an evil shadow-conspiracy, but I don't _think_ it's that bad."

Ruby blinked a few times and silently thanked the universe that she'd ended up with Pyrrha, Sky, and Ren instead. Then, "Okay, um... I guess that's good news?"

"Congratulations!" Pyrrha added.

"So, wait." Ruby made a time-out sign with her hands. "What happened to make things worse?"

"Um..." Jaune hedged. "I can't say what it was specifically. It kinda sucked, but I think we'll be able to work together better anyway. He and the other two always hated each other, and at least now he won't run off on his own in the middle of a fight."

Ruby smiled again—a softer one, this time. "So... are you gonna stop there?"

"Nope!" Jaune cracked his knuckles. "Bring on the next challenge! Except not right now, because I think part of me is still dead inside. _Three in the morning!"_

"Was the argument why you were so late?" Pyrrha asked.

"Well." He took a deep breath. "That was on the airship. Other stuff happened during the mission. Um. We found a kid in the castle, which was freaky enough on its own, and then we got trapped in a panic room with a mountain of Grimm trying to get in—"

Ruby stared at him. She'd been expecting to have the better story, what with Torchwick and all, but he'd practically spent the past week in a comic book!

...Well, okay, maybe they were even on that front.

"—and Weiss was hurt before then, apparently their mission didn't go according to plan either, and I started _glowing_ for some reason—"

"Glowing? " Ruby started bouncing up and down on her heels. "You found your Semblance!"

"I think so? Apparently I can share Aura." He ruffled his own hair, looking slightly embarrassed.

"That's awesome!" She reached up and gave him a high-five. He started looking a little less bone-tired and a little more excited.

"Yeah, I guess it _is_ pretty cool."

"Can you show us?" Pyrrha tilted her head, curious.

"Sure!" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Nothing happened. His expression started looking slightly constipated.

"Um, Jaune?" Ruby tried to see if there was any glowing on his hands. Nope.

"I don't think I can do it now," he admitted.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. When I first used mine it took me like two weeks to figure out how to turn it on and off. And then another month to stop running into trees." Pyrrha giggled, hiding it behind her hand. "And don't even get me started on _Yang,_ I swear we lost so many curtains..."

Jaune smiled. Then he shifted from foot to foot and yawned.

"Oh my gosh!" Ruby backed up so that she wasn't blocking the door. "I totally forgot! You can sit down if you want, since... y'know..."

"Three in the morning?" He nodded. "Thanks." He sat cross-legged on Sky's bed and yawned again. "I slept almost twelve hours, I don't get how I'm this tired."

"Sometimes sleeping that long makes you more exhausted," Pyrrha pointed out. "That, or you overtaxed your body when you discovered your semblance."

"Or both," Ruby added.

He nodded again. It looked a bit like he was trying not to doze off. "I'm just tired," he said, heaving a sigh. "It feels like every time I make progress with my team, something _else_ crops up."

"Like what?"

He winced. "Um. I'm not sure if I should say anything. I don't even know if it is something, but if it is it's probably not my business? Unless maybe it is, because whatever they're doing it seems kind of dangerous, but I don't know if it actually—" He cut off and coughed. "Sorry."

Ruby snorted at him. "Pfft, I _invented_ doing that."

"Anyway. I decided I'll ignore it for at least today, then try and figure out what to do."

"You deserve the rest," Pyrrha agreed.

Jaune opened his mouth to say something, maybe a thank-you, but just then his scroll went off. Within the next few seconds, Ruby's and Pyrrha's followed suit.

Ruby grabbed hers off her desk and opened it. On the screen were the words, "Emergency Alert!" and the image of an Atlesian transport ship. She stared at it for a moment, then pressed a button near the bottom to show the alert.

_Schnee Dust Company Freighters Hijacked in Vale Airspace._

_White Fang involvement suspected._

_Please remain calm and wait for further information._

Ruby dropped the scroll and bolted for the door. "Come on! There's a TV in the rec room!"

She wasn't the only one with the same idea. A cluster of second years—Ruby recognized Velvet—and another first year team whose names she didn't know were all crowded around the screen. It was playing VNN, and Lisa Lavender was mid-sentence when they walked in.

"—confirmed that there is no immediate threat to civilians. However, an estimated twenty tons of Dust was aboard each of the three stolen freighters. Police have not yet been able to determine how or why these ships were hijacked, but security camera footage from one ship indicates the White Fang were involved."

The image cut to a grainy video of the inside of a small hallway. One window looked out over an ocean—you could even see one of the other freighters through it. A man was leaning casually against the wall, reading from a book propped open in one hand. He looked up as if he'd just heard a noise, and then a woman in black darted in through one door holding a sword. The upper half of her face was covered with a white mask traced with red markings that mimicked the Grimm. On her head stood a pair of triangular ears. The image cut away just as she slashed out with her weapon. Ruby's stomach clenched, and she went over to sit on the couch next to Velvet.

On the screen, the footage cut to another part of the ship, or maybe another ship entirely. This time there were no workers, only a huge man with another Grimm mask. His obscured his entire face, not just his eyes and nose, and his left arm was banded with black tattoos. He turned to the camera, then pointed a finger directly at the screen. It went black. Then Lisa Lavender was back.

"We have also received information from the SDC indicating that one of their board members was inside the first freighter to be hijacked. Adelle Syren was accompanying the transport to show consumers that the company is, in her words, 'Alive and kicking,' in the wake of a rash of burglaries by one Roman Torchwick, who was recently apprehended by individuals who expressed a wish to remain anonymous. Her family, as well as the Schnee Dust Comany, are awaiting a demand for ransom."

The broadcast went on, after that. It named statistics. It said that this was the single largest Dust robbery _ever._ It listed the names of crew members and security guards, most or all of whom would never make it back to the ground. Ruby watched in silence, her heart pounding. Was this their fault? They caught Roman, and that was why the White Fang needed so much Dust.

She was broken out of her horrified revelry by a low groan. Looking around, she saw that Velvet had curled up, knees against her chest, and buried her face in her hands. The girl next to her—Ruby had never actually met any of Velvet's teammates, but she guessed she was probably one of them—put a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay," she said quietly.

"Damn it." Velvet stood up suddenly and started pacing back and forth. "It's going to get worse, now. Why don't they understand that they're only making it worse?!" One of the first-years, a boy with mouse ears, stood up and left the room without a word. His team followed.

"Um." Jaune fidgeted a little where he was sitting. "If it's Cardin you're worried about, I can make sure he doesn't—"

"It's not just Cardin!" Velvet was breathing hard, pacing back and forth and gesturing frantically with her hands. "It's _everyone._ They haven't done anything on this scale in _years,_ and now—"

"We can go out into Vale." The speaker was a man, so tall that Ruby thought she might be shorter standing up than he was sitting down. "Just walk around, keep an eye out for anyone who might be misplacing blame."

"I'd make it worse." Velvet took another deep, shuddering breath. "I'd scare them."

"Boo-hoo for them," muttered another boy—probably her last teammate. "If they're going to take their anger out on people who had nothing to do with this—"

"Then they're not rational enough to realize I'm not in Vale looking to hurt someone." Velvet hung her head. "I'm training to be a Huntress, Fox. That's going to scare people, and when they're scared they lash out."

Ruby exchanged a look with Jaune and Pyrrha. It was starting to feel like they were intruding on something. Jaune jerked his head in the direction of the door, and the three of them left the room.

"Is... is this our fault?" Ruby asked, as they entered the hallway. "If we hadn't caught Torchwick... would this still have happened?"

"Wait, you did _what?"_ Jaune stared at her, then at Pyrrha. "You have to tell me that story later."

"I don't think it was our fault," Pyrrha said. "Torchwick would have stolen the same amount of Dust, even if he did it more slowly."

"This is really bad, though!" Ruby worried at the edges of her cloak. "We already knew Torchwick had a deadline, but if they're doing this... it must be soon!"

"Guys," Jaune broke in. "I... I've got to get back to my dorm."

Ruby turned to look at him. "What?"

He rubbed at his forehead, wincing as though he was starting to feel a headache coming on. "My team. It's... I don't know if Weiss knows that board member or not. And it's probably going to get really tense even if she doesn't. You know, Cardin is... Cardin, and Blake's, uh... passionate about Faunus rights, so..."

"Oh." She nodded. "Yeah, go if you need to go." He gave them one last strained smile and dashed off towards the dorms.

Ruby sat down against the wall. "This is bad."

Pyrrha nodded.

"What Velvet was saying... about people maybe getting violent in Vale. Do you think that's true?"

"For some people, yes."

"Right." She stood up again. "Can we go find Sky and Ren? I know Velvet was worried things might get worse if people were scared of her, but we wouldn't have the same problem, right? We could just... I don't know, go get noodles or something, and we can try to help if anyone is hurting Faunus because of all this. Maybe Brine could come, too?"

Pyrrha smiled at her. "Of course. Lead the way."

Ruby started down the hallway, feeling a little of the guilt receding. It felt good to be doing something. Maybe this much Dust would've been stolen even if Torchwick had stayed free, but it _wouldn't_ have caused this much trouble for people like Velvet who would get blamed for no reason. The least they could do was try to put some things right, when they'd stirred it all up in the first place.


	28. Tensile Testing [1]

"She's dead."

Across the table, Blake flinched. "They don't know yet. Maybe there's going to be a demand—"

"If there is, they'll kill her once they get the money." They were in the library—the plan had been to do some research, but in the wake of the recent attack it was difficult to focus. Weiss was gripping the pen in her hand hard enough she was a little worried it might snap. She relaxed by degrees, breathing through her nose. "It's what always happens," she said, putting it down on the table in front of her. "High level executives like Adelle don't come back."

Her father would be calling about this. It was just a matter of when, and every second felt like a weight pressing down on her. The longer it took, the more he would have done beforehand. The more press conferences, the more emergency meetings, the more financial reports and insurance and legal documentation he had to wade through, the worse it would be when he _did_ call.

"Did you know her?"

Weiss looked up. Blake was staring fixedly at the surface of their table. "Not well," she answered, after a moment. "I met her a few times. She was nice enough, if a bit patronizing."

It was starting to sink in that Adelle Syren, she of the blonde braids and sickly sweet voice, who'd once found Weiss hiding in a back hallway in the middle of a party and given her a peppermint, was dead. That, or she was going to be very soon. She drummed her fingers on the table and swallowed with some difficulty.

"I can't..." Blake trailed off. "I can't believe they'd do this."

"I can." Weiss pulled a book towards her. She doubted she would make much headway, but it would give her somewhere to look at that wasn't Blake, or everything _except_ Blake. "It's happened before, on a smaller scale." She remembered every incident, not for the damages themselves but because the tension would hang thick and cloying in the manor for days afterward. There had even been another board member killed, though she'd been very small at the time. Winter had let her stay in her room the night after.

"Something this big, though..." Blake leaned forward with her elbows on the table, her head bowed, her hair falling around her face in a dark curtain. "It's just going to make people angry. Every time there's an incident like this, assaults on Faunus go way up. They stole something like sixty tons of Dust, but what could they need it for that badly?"

"Explosives, if what we saw—" she looked around, then continued in a whisper, "—if what we saw at that base was any indication."

Blake grimaced. "How many bombs do you think they could make, with the Dust from those freighters?"

"Hundreds." Weiss shook her head. "Maybe more? I'm not sure. That probably isn't _all_ they're doing—I'm assuming they need ammunition as well. But... they'd be able to blow the top off a mountain."

"We have to figure out where they're targeting. If there's a bombing..." She rubbed at her eyes. "Things have been getting better for us. None of the four academies forbid us from enrolling, and for every jerk like Cardin that I've met there are at least two people that have been really trying."

"Wait, did you tell someone else?"

"Brine." Blake shrugged. "It's not going to stay secret now that Cardin knows. I'll probably let Raspberry know, too."

Weiss' smile came easily. "I'm glad."

Blake paused. She ran a hand over one arm as if she were cold, stopping to grip her shoulder. "I've been thinking... maybe I don't need to wear the bow in Beacon."

"Oh." Weiss swallowed.

"Do you... want me to keep it?"

"No! I'm glad, it's just... it's not my decision. I don't want to push you one way or the other."

"Thank you." Weiss studied the grain of the wood in the table—there was a knot near her left elbow, one that had been sanded and oiled smooth. She looked up when she heard a rustle. Then down again, because the bow was gone and she didn't want to stare. But she didn't want to give the impression that they bothered her, either.

She glanced at her partner and froze when she saw the two triangular ears poking through her hair. They rotated, stretching after their long confinement. Short, silky fur covered their backs, the same inky black as Blake's hair. It was a shock how _expressive_ they were, the way they seemed to take on a life of their own as they flicked this way and that to catch every sound. Weiss had only seen them twice before, both times in the dark when she was about to fight for her life. Now it was calm, with only the distant sound of turning pages to distract her... and she was staring. Weiss snapped her gaze downward and took in Blake's expression. She was looking at the tabletop, her eyes blank and unfocused.

"We really _have_ made progress," she said quietly. "I never realized it before, but... just the fact that we're sitting here, now, it shows how much better things are than they used to be. There are the Cardins and Ermines of the world, but there's also people like you or Jaune that are willing to listen."

Weiss tensed. She wasn't sure how to feel about being counted among the people who would be kind and non-judgmental, when she was still struggling not to gape at her partner's ears.

Blake took a shaky breath. "That's what scares me. We've made all this progress, but the amount of Dust that's been stolen... if all that went into a _bombing,_ it wouldn't just set us back. It would create a rift that would take centuries to heal."

That hung in the air for a long moment. Weiss groped for something comforting to say, but she couldn't think of anything. Things were already so much tenser in the wake of the recent hijacking than they had been just a day earlier. "We have to stop it," she said instead. "What do we know?"

Blake's mouth curved into a frown. "Not much. They're gathering Dust at that base and storing it underground."

"They're building train tracks," Weiss added. "I tripped over them, when..." she trailed off.

Suddenly, Blake sat bolt upright. "No."

"What?"

"They aren't building them. You saw that place, there's no _way_ they could have dug it out and reinforced it like that in less than a year. If they'd started sooner than that, I would have heard about it."

Weiss shifted uncomfortably—she'd never got up the courage to ask exactly _when_ Blake had left the White Fang, but she was now fairly sure the answer was _right before Beacon._

"Well, if they didn't build it..." her eyes went wide as she realized. "They must have dug into it!"

"Exactly!" Blake stood up and disappeared into the stacks. She returned minutes later with a massive map on thin paper. It was of Vale and the surrounding area. The city itself was covered with crisscrossing bold lines in various colors, and there was one thick black one that extended out into the countryside.

"That base is about here," Blake said, pointing to a spot along that line.

Weiss looked at the legend— _Subway Systems of Vale._ She drew in a breath. "This track goes out of the city," she said, tracing it until it ran off the edge of the map. "That means..."

"Mountain Glenn." Blake nodded gravely.

"But... _why?_ Why bother blowing up an empty ruin?"

"I don't know." Blake was gripping the edge of the table, hard enough that her knuckles were going white. "I don't know what to do. We can't just pop in and out of _Mountain Glenn_ without missing class. We'd have to walk all the way from Vale and there are Grimm everywhere."

"We'll have to keep looking from this end," Weiss decided. "Even if we did make the trip, we have no way of knowing _where_ they are. Mountain Glenn is huge."

"We could look for likely targets," Blake suggested.

Weiss shook her head. "We'd need a map of the colony, and..."

"Those are restricted."

"Exactly."

"Could you get one through the SDC?"

A knot formed in Weiss' stomach. He still hadn't called. "Not for a while. Like I said, my Father is already paying extra attention to what I'm doing. Now that there's been an attack, he's going to be..." she trailed off. It was hard to explain the exact mood he'd be in—almost manic, jumping from one thing to another as he sought out loose ends and tied them up. He would be engrossed in his work, but he would still check on her, and if her network use distracted him at a crucial moment...

"Okay." Blake took a deep breath and let it out. "We find out what we can from Vale."

Weiss nodded. "After dinner we can pull up everything we're allowed access to that has anything to do with Mountain Glenn. We could even ask Oobleck, frame it as scholarly curiosity."

Blake stood up. "Let's go. I think the books we need would be near the back."

"Oh." Weiss hesitated. "Shouldn't we eat first? Otherwise we'd have to stop in the middle of—"

"You can go."

"Blake—"

"I can't eat right now," she snapped. Weiss clenched her jaw, waiting for a moment because she didn't trust herself to speak.

Before she could say anything else, Blake seemed to fold in on herself. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just... I don't think I could keep anything down. I'll get something later, but I want to make some progress first."

"Okay."

"You go ahead. I'll find everything I can, and when you get back we'll read through it together."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I'm fine. Let's just—" she cut off mid-sentence when someone walked past their hiding spot. She only recognized Dove when he stopped and seated himself at another table a little ways away from theirs.

"I know an out of the way terminal," Blake said. He didn't glance up, but his ears turned pink and he shifted uncomfortably when she looked at him.

"Lead the way," Weiss decided.

They were forced to return to the dorm at curfew, but they checked out all the books they could carry and went on reading. After lights-out, Weiss assumed they would stop. She'd forgotten that Blake could still read even in the dark. Frustrated, she dragged her partner into the bathroom so that they could stay up together. When they emerged, it was past midnight and Jaune and Cardin were both fast asleep. Weiss barely managed to stay upright long enough to brush her teeth and change. She hadn't eaten—it had gotten hard to focus on anything else once they started picking through memoirs of Mountain Glenn survivors.

This hadn't been the plan. She'd wanted to slow down a little—their last outing had ended rather badly, and there was only so much two people could really do about an organization like the White Fang. But... Blake was _right._ There was so much at stake, it was hard to even conceptualize it.

Weiss lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling and listening to Cardin's snores. It was only then that she remembered that Father still hadn't called. Her hands tightened on the blanket she'd pulled over herself. Had he forgotten? She hadn't _missed_ it, had she?

No. She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest and staring around the darkened dorm room to reassure herself. Blake looked like she was sleeping. Her ears were uncovered, and one of them kept flicking back in time with her breathing. Weiss lay down and turned to face the wall. It was going to take forever to fall asleep at this rate. And, when she finally did, she might wake up to the sound of her scroll going off.

Wonderful. Just _wonderful._

* * *

Dove turned the corner and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw Weiss and Blake at the table he'd planned on taking. He paused, just for a second, wondering where he should go. There was somewhere near the other side of the library, under a window... but would it be rude to avoid her?

He sat down nearby, shoulders tensed. Then he glanced over at them and froze. The bow was gone—Blake had _ears._ "I know an out of the way terminal," she said, and the two of them walked away without so much as a word. Dove winced. He really _should_ have sat somewhere else.

Not knowing what else to do, he brought out his history textbook. It was one of the newly published ones, the ones that tended to glorify the Faunus Uprising. He flipped to chapter twelve. There was a picture underneath the title of two men, one Faunus and one Human, shaking hands. Rather misleading no matter how you looked at it—the two species certainly hadn't been so friendly just after the war. They weren't so friendly now.

Except... he _had_ just walked in on Blake and Weiss at a table together, apparently perfectly at ease in one another's company. Did Weiss _know?_ Well, obviously she knew, the ears were visible, now. Dove wondered briefly if it were possible that Blake was... well, if she was here for Weiss specifically. She'd certainly be a target for radicalized Faunus. But surely, if that were the plan something would have happened already.

No. Blake probably wasn't involved in any of... that.

She had fooled him before, though. _Thoroughly._ It was a bit eerie if he were honest—she'd acted completely normal for months. Being a Faunus wasn't just an extra pair of ears or a tail, something you could hide without anyone else noticing. Maybe he'd missed some kind of tell. He hadn't exactly been close with her.

And Weiss had asked for help _befriending_ her. It was a good thing she wasn't violent, or... well. That could have ended badly. But how was he supposed to know? She went around reading Viridian. He was pretty sure none of his teammates had ever even _heard_ of her, let alone read her work.

Irritating.

He'd wanted someone to discuss books with, too. Maybe he could ask Ren about it? He seemed like the type to know about the classics. Possibly Sky or Pyrrha.

Dove turned the page and frowned when he realized he hadn't absorbed a single word so far. A glossy picture jumped out at him. This one was of general Gladiolus, a young-looking woman with a shock pale green feathers that swept back into her hair. Yesterday he had wondered idly what species Blake was—she was quiet, polite, surprisingly intelligent. He'd thought she might be a raven or an owl, but he supposed a cat made sense, too.

He drummed his fingers on the table. There must have been something he hadn't noticed. But... something _Weiss_ hadn't noticed, either? She wasn't stupid by any means, and they'd lived in the same room for months. Would she even know what to look for? He wasn't sure he did, anymore. He certainly wouldn't have guessed Blake of all people would turn out to be one of them—maybe it was more likely to be her than Weiss, but he honestly would have picked Cardin out of everyone on their team. He had the wild temper down pat, and the way he lashed out at Velvet could have been him projecting. Jaune just seemed like too much of a dork to be hiding anything important.

Heaving a sigh, Dove stood up and closed his textbook. He wasn't getting anywhere with this. He hesitated, glancing around the empty library. There was still plenty of time before curfew. He could go to the cafeteria for dinner, but he found that he was uncomfortable. Something about Blake had left him with a mental splinter that needed to be addressed. With that, he got up and started searching the corridors.

It took him about half an hour, but eventually he poked his head into the rec room and saw Velvet curled in on herself on one of the armchairs, reading through an advanced-looking textbook on applied Dust mechanics. She glanced up when he walked in, and then tensed slightly.

"Hello," Dove said, feeling if anything even more awkward than when he'd turned a corner and nearly bumped into Blake and Weiss.

"Are you looking for your teammates?"

"No." He shifted uneasily. "I wanted to talk to you, actually."

"Oh." Velvet closed the book, leaving a finger in between the pages to keep her place. "That's alright. I don't have that long before dinner, though."

He sat down a few seats away from her.

"What exactly did you want to say?" Velvet asked. Her tone was a bit guarded. Maybe even impatient.

"Someone just told me yesterday that she's a Faunus."

Velvet's eyes went wide. "Oh. _Oh._ Who—No, never mind. You shouldn't tell me if she didn't want you to."

"I don't think it matters. She said she told us because Cardin already knows, so it's probably going to get out anyway."

"Blake, then."

Dove did a double take. "So you can tell?"

"I can't imagine how Cardin would be one of the first to know except by being on a team with the person, and you said _she,_ so..."

"Oh. But... _can_ you tell? I couldn't, but you'd know what to look for."

"No, I can't." Velvet looked a bit irritated at that. "If she was hiding her Faunus trait, then there wouldn't be anything else for me to look for."

"What about behavior?"

Velvet took a deep breath. "You can't tell someone is a Faunus by how they act. Some of us have quirks, like sleeping habits or food preferences—I feel a little sick if I eat too much red meat at once—but some don't have any of that at all. I knew a lion Faunus once that had been vegan since he was six."

"There are other things," Dove insisted. "I know wolves prefer to stay in groups—"

"So do rabbit Faunus," Velvet said. "And squirrel Faunus, and cat Faunus, and _every Faunus and human on Remnant."_

"But there _are_ differences. I've heard about them. There was a dog who—"

"Dove." Velvet cut him off, then made sure to look him right in the eye. It suddenly dawned on him how rarely she did that. "I know you aren't trying to be rude, and I do appreciate that. But... who _exactly_ did you hear about these 'behavioral differences' from?"

Dove opened his mouth, then closed it again. Some had been his parents. More had been from books and teachers, the occasional movie. He hadn't actually seen any of it, but then again he hadn't met many Faunus before Beacon.

"What do you think the difference is, then?" he asked.

She sighed. "They really are just ears, Dove. Any differences past that are cultural, not biological."

He sat in silence for a moment, scowling. Then, "Do you like classic literature?"

Velvet stared at him. "I prefer visual art like photography. Why?"

"Blake was reading Viridian's stories. I didn't think Faunus liked those kinds of books."

He'd been expecting her to look annoyed again, but instead she let out a small laugh. "Dove, Viridian is _hugely popular_ in Menagerie."

"She is?"

"All her stories are about not fitting into societal roles and expectations. Her characters are often ostracized or shunned for things that aren't their fault. A lot of people think she was probably a Faunus, it would explain why she wrote under a pen name."

Dove's mouth opened and closed a few times. "But... but none of her characters are Faunus!"

"Not explicitly." Velvet smiled at him. "Read some of them again. If they _aren't_ Faunus, then they're going through something very similar. It might help you empathize better."

And that was how Dove ended up staying up until past midnight with one of Viridian's books in his lap, realizing with dawning terror that she never _once_ described one of her protagonists. They could have been tall or short, dark-skinned or fair—human or Faunus.

He didn't sleep very well that night.

* * *

The next afternoon during lunch, Sky found himself lying flat on his back in the courtyard, gasping for breath and trying not to throw up. In his defense, he'd just been hit really hard in the stomach. Less in his defense, he'd been hit because he'd gotten distracted in the middle of a training session.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" Ruby's face leaned into his field of vision. "Are you okay?"

"Hrk."

"I didn't mean to hit you that hard, it's just that you were really on a roll with dodging and I got excited!"

"Nng..."

"Here." She held out a hand. He groped for it, missed, then managed to grab it. She tugged him to his feet, where he stood swaying and holding his stomach.

"Ow," he managed, after a moment.

"I'm sorry!"

"'S fine." He shook his head. "Ugh. Note to self, always watch the scythe."

Ruby winced. "Yeah, that was my uncle's first rule, too. Let me tell you, I got _super_ attentive during training after—oh, hey Jaune!"

It was at that point that Sky remembered what had distracted him in the first place—namely, Jaune coming out of the school building and waving. "Hi," he said, feeling a little awkward—it was Jaune, so he wasn't _too_ embarrassed about being floored like that, but still.

"Hey guys!" Jaune gave them another little wave. "Uh, I was just wondering... are you sparring?"

"Yep!" Ruby folded her scythe into a somewhat less intimidating form. "We're doing that trading thing I told you about."

Jaune nodded. "I thought that was what that was."

Sky flushed. He... admittedly should have expected that. Pyrrha definitely knew, she'd run into them a few times, and he'd mentioned it once to Ren, so it wasn't _unreasonable_ that Jaune knew.

He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah, uh... I guess it's sort of like sparring but where one of us is a lot more bruised than the other."

Ruby winced. "Sorry."

"It's okay! Funnily enough, being hit during sparring is a lot less scary now that I've fought people that were actually trying to kill me." He still had to fight the instinct to back up a step every time he saw Crescent Rose fully extended, but that would probably go away. Eventually. Maybe.

"Um, about that." Jaune shifted from foot to foot. "I was wondering if I could join in? I meant to ask earlier, but then Goodwitch okayed our mission and I knew I wasn't going to be around for a while."

Ruby stared at him a moment. Then she broke into a wide grin. "Of course! Um, if that's okay with you?" She glanced at Sky.

"Yeah, sure." It would be a nice change of pace to spar with an opponent who didn't have to be careful not to break him.

Jaune's shoulders sagged with relief. "Awesome. Because... uh, well, now that my team is... um... _functioning,_ I want to work on being a little less of a mess when we have to fight. It seems unfair to make Blake and Weiss carry the whole team."

Ruby jabbed a finger in his general direction. "For the record? There _still_ wouldn't be a team to carry if it wasn't for you. But yeah, we can definitely do some sparring!"

"And I can help you with theory if you like," Sky added. "Ruby missed a lot of the background stuff when she skipped ahead, and... I don't actually know where you went to school before this, sorry."

Jaune turned bright red. "Oh. It's not, uh... not that important. But I could use help with that, too."

"Great!" Ruby clapped her hands together. Then, something seemed to occur to her. "Oh, no! Wait, I don't think I can teach you!"

"Huh?"

"I'm terrible with swords."

There was a momentary lull, as Sky and Jaune both stared at her.

"I haven't practiced in years, not since I started training with my uncle, and they never felt _right,_ you know? So I could give you some of the basics but..."

"Oh. Okay." Jaune looked a little wilted.

"It's not a problem though! I mean, maybe today we won't be able to do as much, but I could just ask Pyrrha to help."

Jaune blanched. "Uh..."

"And I don't want to speak for her or anything but I'm like ninety percent sure she'll say yes."

"I don't know... Isn't she busy?"

"Maybe? If she is then we can figure something else out." It was at that point that Ruby noticed the look on his face. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah!" He winced. "It's just... I don't know, I'm not sure if that'd be a good idea."

"Oh." Ruby's face fell. "Maybe you could ask Dove? He's the only other person with the same kind of sword as you, and he doesn't use shields... or I guess there's always Weiss and Blake, they're on your team and everything, but I really don't think you'd use a rapier the same way as a longsword—"

Jaune had gone even paler at the mention of his teammates. "Yeah, no. They're _definitely_ busy."

"Okay." Ruby fidgeted with her cloak a little. "But I think Pyrrha would be fine with teaching you. Especially since she'd just need to show you some of the basics and from there you could practice on me and Sky."

Jaune hesitated.

"Why wouldn't you want to learn from her, though?" Ruby asked, frowning. "The three of us talk all the time."

"Yeah, but that's... that's talking!" Jaune groaned and hung his head. "It's just... she's _really good,_ and it's kind of... intense."

"Oh." Ruby nodded. Then she shook her head. "Wait, what?"

"Not that you're not really good too, it's just... um..."

"But she's so nice!"

"I know! I don't want to waste her time, that's all."

Ruby gave him a _look._ "You're her friend."

Jaune flushed. "I mean, I hope I am."

"You are! So I'll ask her, and you can stop being so weird about it. Because if she really doesn't have time she'll just say no, and I'll have to ask Yang to ask Dove to help or something. Or I'll try and remember what I can. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Great!" Ruby gave him a clap on the shoulder. "Welcome to the class! Or, um... club? Something like that."

Sky managed a weak grin and a high-five, but... he was feeling a bit queasy with nerves. Sure, Pyrrha was nice—nicer than pretty much anyone he'd ever met, honestly—but she was also... He tried to think of a word besides _intimidating_ and came up blank. Training with Ruby, he could at least tell himself that there was a semi-equal exchange going on. He was helping her catch up on missed theory, and she was beating him into shape with a giant scythe. But Pyrrha color-coded her notes and had unbelievably neat handwriting and was scoring higher than him in some classes. There would be _no_ equivalent exchange there. Plus... well... who the hell was _he_ to be getting coaching from the Invincible Girl?


	29. Tensile Testing [2]

"I swear, there are fucking ears under there!"

Cardin flopped back in his seat and gave his lunch tray a frustrated shove. His drink wobbled, sending a spray of orange juice down onto his plate. He regarded it with disgust.

Leondardo's lip curled. "Filthy creatures." He ran a hand through his pale blond hair. "I don't know who they think they're fooling."

"Cardin, apparently," Rufus said.

Cardin flipped him off. Rufus gave him a wry sort of smirk and propped his chin up on one hand. "Remind me, how long have you been on a team with this thing?"

"Almost four months."

"Wow." Nelson started chuckling. The tattoo around his eyes crinkled a bit as he did so—it was dark black, shaped like a domino mask and stylized at its edges so that it swept over his cheeks in thin swirls. Cool, maybe, but it made him look like a faunus if you were too far away to see that it was ink rather than fur.

"I know!" Cardin slammed a hand down on the table. "She must've lied on her application to get in. I should tell Ozpin."

"You do that, Cardin," Rufus told him. "Go to the headmaster like a _real_ man."

He let a smirk grow on his own face to match the older boy's. "I bet she lied. I bet he'd kick her out."

"I wouldn't count on it," Leonardo drawled. "Beacon lets in riff-raff. Same with Atlas, unfortunately—if they'd kept their halls clean I might've attended there instead."

"Don't know what the hell Weiss is doing here, then." Cardin lifted a bite of omelet off his tray—only slightly soggy from the orange juice—and shoved it in his mouth. "She's from Atlas, right?"

"If she's _that_ Weiss, then yes. I met her a few years ago, you know. One of those high-society things—I wasn't that impressed."

Cardin rolled his eyes. Leonardo would tell anyone at all who would listen that he was an Edelfell, which was apparently a big deal in Atlas. A big enough deal to get into a party with _Schnees,_ like a family that only got rich because some old gasbag ancestor was lucky enough to be sitting on the right land at the right time should be the one _hosting_ these things.

Stuck-up obviously ran in the family. He stabbed at his omelet with more force than necessary, remembering the airship and her smug face. Just because she went batshit crazy out of _nowhere_ and pinned him down with those stupid glyphs, she thought she was hot shit. Next time she tried, he was going to _bury_ her.

"Remind me, Leo," Rufous said, still smirking. "Why _did_ you go to Beacon, exactly?" Leonardo blushed, then gave his partner a deadly look. Cardin frowned. He'd never heard that story.

"I guess Atlas Academy must be on the decline, if people are jumping ship," he joked.

Leonardo glared at him. "Shut up, firstie."

"Don't be so _mean_ to him, Leo!" Rufous leaned over and lay an arm across Cardin's shoulders. "He's one of _us_ now, remember?"

Cardin preened. The four of them weren't exactly the top of their class—though he knew better than to mention that in front of them—but he was pretty sure a lot of that was because Goodwitch had some kind of vendetta. He honestly didn't understand how he'd had the miserable luck to end up on a team with a limp noodle, a stuck-up bitch, and a _cat,_ when if he'd applied two years earlier he might have had a team like ERMN.

"I can't wait 'till I can graduate and drop the dead weight," he declared, cracking his knuckles. Rufous and Nelson both laughed—they probably realized just how idiotic this whole system was.

"You could always just take over," Nelson suggested with a wide grin. "I bet a big strong guy like _you_ wouldn't have any trouble."

"'Course I could," Cardin said. He'd made a deal, but it was dumb luck that he'd lost anyway.

"That way you wouldn't have to live with one of _them,"_ Rufous added. "It's just not sanitary."

"We could deal with it for you." Marten spoke for the first time. His silky voice had an odd lilt to it that might have been a trace of an accent, or just a personal quirk. "You have the key to your dorm."

Cardin's stomach flipped. He coughed, then tried to laugh it off. "Nah, they're my team, I can handle them."

Marten shrugged as if he didn't care, but there was a glitter in his eyes that Cardin didn't like. The others would mess around with Velvet sometimes, but his suggestions tended to be the sort of thing that would get them expelled. Cardin didn't want the guy in his dorm late at night, even if they were friends.

Nelson, who was giving his partner a wary look, forced a grin. "Yeah, well. Your team, your problem."

"I still can't believe it was wandering around in broad daylight without anyone noticing," Leonardo said.

Cardin shrugged. "She doesn't talk to anyone outside the team, kind of fades into the background. I guess no one looked close enough."

"Still. _Ears._ Maybe we should have a rule, no hats in the hallways. Make sure the others can't pull the same trick."

"Some of 'em have tails," Rufous pointed out. "You'd have to forbid pants in the hallway, too."

Marten got that sharp look on his face again. "I wouldn't mind that."

"Gross." Rufous chuckled nervously. "No one wants to see you in your boxers, Marten."

"I'm serious," Leonardo insisted. "We shouldn't have animals roaming around in the halls, but if the headmaster isn't going to ban them completely we should at least have some fair warning. I'm never going to look at a girl in a bow the same way again!"

That last bit he said just a little too loudly. Cardin was mid-laugh when someone grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled, hard. "What the fu—" his chair tipped over and spilled him onto the ground. Jaune was standing over him, glaring.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Eating. You gonna ban that, leader-boy?" Cardin got up and shot a glance at ERMN to gauge their reaction. Leonardo looked amused, Rufous was openly laughing, and Nelson was watching with both eyebrows raised. Marten was looking at Jaune with that cold, too-bright smile on his face.

"You told them." Jaune's face was going ruddy.

"So?"

"That was private!"

"Yeah? So was my _dorm room._ I didn't sign up for a bed in a zoo!"

Jaune gave him a shove, and he had to grab the table behind him to keep from falling over again. "I need to talk to you. Come on."

Cardin ignored him.

"Cardin. _Now."_

"Whatever." He stalked off, muttering curses under his breath.

Jaune led them out into the hallway, around a corner, and then onto the grounds. He stopped a little ways away, in an out-of-the-way spot behind a cluster of trees.

"What?" Cardin demanded.

"You shouldn't have told them."

He rolled his eyes. "She walked out of the room this morning showing the stupid things off, I don't think she cares."

Jaune did a double-take. "She did?"

"You didn't see?"

He scowled. "No. I was in the shower."

Cardin shrugged. "Well, she was. So, are we done?"

Jaune sighed. "Look, Cardin..."

_"What?"_

"I just... I don't think Ermine are your friends."

"Screw off. Maybe the teachers were dumb enough to pick you as leader, but that doesn't make you my mom."

"I'm not trying to say who you can and can't be friends with," Jaune insisted. "I'm telling you that they're making fun of you."

"You've barely talked to them."

"And they were messing with you! They're jerks, and even you don't deserve that."

 _"Screw. Off."_ He brushed past his team leader and stalked back to the school building. _Idiot._ Cardin made his way back to the cafeteria and over to the table he'd just been sitting at. ERMN was gone, though his lunch tray was still sitting there, juice-soaked omelet and all. He ate quickly, then shoved his leftovers in the trash and left the room. Jaune just _had_ to mess up his breakfast, didn't he? Couldn't have left him alone for another _five minutes._

He seethed all the way to History, where found Jaune sitting with their other two teammates. Both looked half-dead—like something the cat dragged in. _Ha._ Blake's ears were on full display, and Weiss kept sneaking glances at her from behind her textbook. _Guess she adopted a pet._ Cardin plopped down next to his partner, as far away from the freak as he could get, and leaned back in his seat. A couple vertebrae popped.

Jaune brought out a notebook, and Cardin snorted when he caught a glimpse of the inside of it—he'd never met anyone with worse handwriting than his own before, and the increasingly panicked scribbles were hilarious even if he had no idea what they said. Wait...

He frowned and leaned a little closer. Someone else had written over them in pen—another scrawl, so he couldn't read a word of it, but they'd organized the text into chunks and peppered it with asterisks like the shrapnel from a pen-grenade.

"Did you finally beg the princess for help?" Cardin asked.

The girl herself glanced over and sniffed. "My handwriting is neater than that."

"It's Sky's," Jaune explained.

Weiss nodded approvingly. "That's a good idea." A glare in Cardin's direction. "I'm glad _someone_ is putting in some actual effort. You're not getting any notes from me, just so you know."

"Wait, does that mean I can have notes?"

"Take your own. If Sky is looking them over with you, they'll be a better indication of what you understood." Jaune slumped in his seat.

"Who says I need your garbage notes?" Cardin demanded.

"Your average."

Further down the line, he heard a muffled huff of laughter. "You got something to say, _freak?"_

"Mr. Winchester."

He looked up and found Oobleck glaring at him. "What?"

"I won't accept discrimination from my students." He straightened up and looked around at the class at large. "That goes for all of you. Today, we're going to be discussing the ramifications of the recent attack by the White Fang, and while this was a _terrible_ tragedy, it is _not_ an excuse to take your anger or frustration out on your peers, and _especially_ not on civilians." He pushed his glasses further up on his nose, then flashed a warm smile in Blake's direction. Cardin stared after him as he blurred back toward the center of the class, feeling something churning in his stomach.

"Now!" Oobleck clapped his hands together. "Who can tell me what happened?"

Weiss cleared her throat pointedly and shoved a piece of paper in his direction. He crumpled it up and threw it at her. She stiffened, and for a second he thought the prissy princess was going to start something—and this time, he'd be the one _finishing_ it. Then Blake grabbed her wrist, and she looked away with a huff.

Cardin slouched back in his seat and smirked.

* * *

"Alright, gentlemen!" Sky dumped a heap of books on the table between the three of them. Ren leaned forward to get a better look. It was hard to evaluate them properly when he wasn't even sure what exactly they were looking for. Dove picked one up to inspect the title.

 _"The Rise and Fall of the White Fang,"_ he read.

"I know it's more about their history than what they're doing now, but we could look through it for references to Torchwick or Neo or their terrifying boss."

"It's clean," Dove said.

"What?" Sky stared at him. "Did you think I was going to spill coffee on it or something?"

"There's no dust, lowercase 'D' dust. Someone took it off the shelf recently."

Ren leaned forward and brushed a finger along the spines of the other books. Then he rubbed it against his thumb. No grittiness. "They're all like that."

Sky huffed out a breath. "Okay. That's ominous."

"It might be something to do with the recent attack," Dove said. "People were angry, that could have lead them here."

"What kind of angry racist gets riled up by a hijacking and then storms off to do _research?"_

Dove flushed. "I read _Rise and Fall_ and _Primal Conflict,_ but I haven't had time for the others yet."

Ren and his partner exchanged a look. Sky seemed utterly baffled, but... well, being life partners with Nora meant that he'd heard a lot about Dove's faunus problem. _If nothing else, he's obviously not unwilling to learn._ He mouthed, 'Later,' and decided to change the subject. "Were there any notes left behind? Some clue as to who it was?"

Sky hummed. "Well, they're books, so... not Cardin."

Ren felt the corner of his mouth twitch. It was a pleasant surprise how nice spending time researching in the library was, now that most of the awkwardness had been ironed out. Still—there was work to be done. He pulled one of the books towards himself and flicked through a few pages. They were hardly pristine. This one, _I Live in Menagerie,_ had probably been getting on in years when he'd been _born._ None of the damage looked particularly new, though. There were no bookmarks that might have been the work of their mysterious predecessor.

"Odd," he said aloud, after a moment.

The terminals were similar. Their databases were designed to flag recently viewed pages, so that one could find past resources or avoid ones they'd already read. Every single thing they could think to search had been flagged. Well, _almost_ everything.

"It's always been too extreme for me and I'm starting to have serious questions about its validity," Dove said as he pulled up _The Feral Faction,_ an anti-faunus news site that reported solely on the White Fang and what they considered related issues, "but the reporters _do_ have access to information that we don't."

"That doesn't really help us if they're ignoring the bits of it they don't like," Sky pointed out.

Dove shrugged. "We've been through everything else, and if we're going to figure out who's been looking up this information before us, then we're going to want to read things they _haven't."_

Ren had to agree that was a fair point, though it churned his stomach a little to read it. There was one particular entry about so-called 'wild' faunus that raided trash bins, and the condescending portrayal made his blood boil. He and Nora had been there, once—but he refused to be ashamed of it, not when it had kept them alive long enough to get here.

Sky shuddered as he flicked through one entry. "I feel dirty just looking at this."

"It's information," Dove pointed out. "Whether or not you agree with it, it's the perfect recording of the trends among more outspoken humans that the White Fang are reacting to. And whoever turned this place upside-down didn't look at it. What does that tell you?"

"They don't know the names of disturbing news columns off the top of their head?"

"They're not pro-human. That rules out the possibility that this is a reaction to the hijacking specifically, or if it is then it isn't an angry one. Whoever it is, they're either a faunus themself, or they sympathize enough that they wouldn't read this."

"Yeah, okay," Sky grumbled. "But it's still gross."

"I think I found something," Dove said, as his eyes skimmed across the title of one article. Ren leaned in to see—he wasn't exactly heartbroken by the break from his own reading—and read the title. _Faunus Getting Away With Murder._ Lovely.

"What does this have to do with anything?" he asked.

"Look at this." Dove pointed to a small superscript 3, after a sentence about faunus on human crimes going unreported in, 'the Vale zoo.' "It's a reference to a recent Dust robbery gone wrong."

"So?" Sky asked.

Dove hesitated. "It's a crime we didn't know about before, isn't it? I'm just making the point that—"

"Wait." Sky grabbed hold of the terminal and scrolled down to the reference. He tapped the link. "Look. It's from a neighborhood in the docks, right?"

Ren and Dove both nodded slowly. Sky ushered them over to the terminal he'd been using and flicked to another reference. "See? Same neighborhood. And this one's from another area. What do they all have in common?"

"Faunus neighborhoods," Dove replied instantly.

"Yeah. They're not criminals covering up a crime, but they _are_ really likely to get targeted by police, right? So they're incredibly _un_ -likely to report something if they see it. They'd be worried someone will blame them. Right?"

"Right," Dove allowed.

"So... that's pretty much the perfect environment for the White Fang to set up a base in."

Ren nodded, frowning.

"I bet if I looked through all of these, or better yet the reputable news outlets that aren't super disturbing—sorry Dove, but it's true—I could find some spots that would be more likely to have bases nearby. And then, on top of _that,_ we could start filtering for other criteria as well, and from there we can look around Vale!" He paled. "Not in the, _let's go fight Torchwick with zero plan_ kind of way! Just, um... scouting."

Dove's head hit the table in front of him. "Why would you say that?"

"But isn't it exciting? I bet I could mock up an algorithm to rate them in terms of the most viable—"

"Feel free," Ren said, giving his partner a smile. _"After_ dinner."

Sky's face fell. Then he looked at the terminal and yelped, "It's _six-thirty?!"_

"Yes. And we need to eat before the cafeteria closes." Which was at seven. He was fairly sure his partner would have forgotten entirely if left to his own devices. As it was, they barely managed to shovel down a meal before they had to leave.

"I'm going to hit the library again tomorrow," Sky said, as they walked down the hallway towards their dorms. "This is so _cool,_ I never get to do math to things here."

Dove made a small, amused noise in the back of his throat.

"What? Dust Theory doesn't _count,_ it's all squishy and, well, _maybe_ if you add a _pinch_ of this or a _dollop_ of that—"

"There are precise measurements," Ren pointed out.

Sky threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "Precise measurements based on assumptions about physical objects that interact in complicated ways! We _assume_ the temperature! That's what I call _guessing!"_

"Educated guesswork," Dove put in.

"It's nice and all, don't get me wrong," Sky allowed, "But life just isn't the same when it's not full of probabilities."

The other two both turned to stare at him. Sky stared back.

Ren found he couldn't _quite_ keep up a straight face, and decided to just give up and chuckle. Dove cracked at exactly the same time. It was a quiet, restrained sort of laugh for both of them, but Sky looked like he'd just struck gold.

"We're _nerds,"_ he whispered, grinning.

 _"You_ made the pun," Dove pointed out.

"And _you_ laughed!"

They came to the entrance of RSPR and BRYN's dorms like that, with Sky grinning and hopping around and firing off Dust Theory puns as quickly as he could think them up—while Dove groaned and complained about _one_ Yang being more than enough. Then they stopped in front of the doors. Ren turned to Sky. "I promised Nora I would stay over tonight."

He paused. "Oh. Oh, yeah, okay!"

Ren shifted from foot to foot, then smiled, trying his best to match his partner's enthusiasm. "I'll see you at breakfast."

"Yeah!" Sky backed up and grabbed the door handle. "Uh, 'night!"

"Goodnight."

* * *

Nora lay in wait, patient and still as a snake.

"You're vibrating, Nora," Russel said, from somewhere across the room.

"Shh! I'm not here."

He glanced from her to the door, then snorted and went back to the game he was playing on his scroll. Out in the hallway, she could hear voices. Any second now...

The door beeped as someone unlocked it, and Nora crouched down, tensing her legs. She let Dove walk through the door, then do a double-take when he saw her. "What are you—"

Ren walked in behind him, and Nora pounced. He stumbled back a step, then leaned against the wall to stay upright. "Hello," he said mildly.

"Hi!" She let go of him and put her hands on her hips. "It's been _way_ too long."

"He was here ten days ago," Russel pointed out. "And you slept over with Raspberry last week."

"Too long!"

Yang laughed. "Hey, Ren? I put an extra toothbrush in the bathroom if you need one."

He blinked a few times. "I believe I do, actually."

"And there's an air-mattress," Russel added. "Don't ask."

Ren raised both his eyebrows.

"It was a Torchwick-Arrest present," Dove said. "From me to the dorm at large. I think you underestimate how much quieter it is with you here."

"Eh." Russel made a so-so gesture with his hand. "Yang snores either way. _Ow!"_

Yang picked up another pillow. "I will fight you on this!"

"You can't deny it anymore! I told you. Dove told you. _Ruby_ told you!"

She grinned. "Yeah, but it's fun to hit you."

"Dove!" Russel whined. "Help."

"No."

"Ren!"

Ren blinked a few times, then looked at Yang. "You snore."

"Wha—I know that! You guys don't need to keep reminding me."

"But so does Russel."

"Hey!"

"Yes!"

Nora beamed at the four of them. _This?_ This was perfect. She sort of wished it could be like this all the time, but she couldn't steal Ren from RSPR either. When she'd stayed over last time, Ruby had told her they could share instead of her sleeping on the floor, since she'd gotten used to Yang when they were kids and there was literally no way Nora was worse. (That turned out to be untrue—Ren had never told her, but apparently she kicked a lot in her sleep.) She loved staying over in their dorm almost as much as she loved keeping Ren in hers. It probably wasn't what Beacon's teams normally looked like, but it was _awesome._

"We should totally be one big Frankenstein-team," she mused, not for the first time. "Do they have double-dorms for second-years?"

"Nope." Russel grinned. "They like team bonding way too much for that." They were definitely good at it, that was for sure. She was feeling so team-bonded that it was like being a steel ball between a pair of magnets. Really strong magnets, the ones you couldn't swallow in case they closed over your insides and killed you. _The Pyrrha-strength magnets._

"C'mon," she told Ren, guiding him over to her and Dove's side of the room. The mattress was out, which meant that Yang and Russel would have to step over it to get to their beds. "I've been doing this by myself for half an hour and it's not the same."

"Doing what?" he asked.

Nora grinned at him, then took a flying leap onto her bed, bounced off, and brushed her fingers against the ceiling. "This!"

"The rest of us have homework, unfortunately," Dove said. "Well. Yang and Russel do, I don't want to break my bed."

Ren gave the air mattress a wary look. "Just use mine!" Nora grabbed his arm and pulled him up. He shrugged and bounced lightly in place, like he was trying to disturb the sheets as little as possible. She started doing her best to trip him.

"I'm cutting you off at eight," Dove told them. "That's probably going to annoy whoever lives under us."

"Eh." Russel leaned back against his pillows and yawned. "If they haven't snapped and tried to kill us by now, they aren't going to."

Dove rolled his eyes and said, "Brilliant deduction, Russ," but he still ordered a halt at eight o'clock sharp. After that Nora and Ren sat on her bed, talking a little about the most recent fight. They hadn't had the chance to go through the blow-by-blow until now—she almost took his eye out explaining how she'd set off a box of energy Dust.

They chatted like that for a while, idly, with Yang and Russel and even sometimes Dove chiming in. There wasn't an official lights out at Beacon—that was up to the teams themselves. For BRYN it was usually around eleven, a compromise between her and Dove the morning people, and Yang and Russel the night owls. Once that time finally came, Nora bid Ren and her team goodnight and curled up under her blankets.

She lay there a long time. Every so often she'd catch herself starting to drift off and sit up for a minute or two. Finally, when Yang and Russel were both snoring—Ren had been spot on about that—and Dove hadn't turned over in forever, Nora leaned over and gently poked the tip of her friend's nose. He always startled if he was shaken out of bed in the morning, but she'd done this so many times by now that it was one of the only ways to wake him up gently.

He wrinkled his nose and then opened his eyes. "Nora?" he whispered. She could just make out his shape in the dark, with the sliver of moonlight that crept in through the window.

"Can we talk a little more?" she asked.

Ren considered that for a moment, then nodded. She lay down on her stomach so that her head was poking out over the edge of her bed. He leaned against the bedframe and looked up at her.

"Did you have anything specific in mind?"

She shook her head.

He paused for a moment, lost in thought. Then, "You still want to stay?"

"Yeah!" She winced, then lowered her voice a little more. "Do you?"

Ren nodded.

"It's really different," Nora said, leaning her chin on one arm.

"How so?"

"I guess I'm not used to caring about so many people at once." She paused, considering. "I mean, not that I didn't care about people before, but it was different. I wanted to make sure they didn't get eaten 'cause that was what we did, but I didn't know them or anything."

Ren hummed agreement. "It's certainly been a while since I've had this many friends. If I ever did. I wasn't that social before I met you."

"Plus the kids in your village were jerks."

"That, too." He frowned. "I'm sure some of them were good people, and others would have grown out of it. It's not as if we ever got to find out."

Nora bopped him on the nose. "You're making yourself sad." He hummed again, noncommittal.

"I think you were right about it being good to know other people," Nora decided. "I mean, it's never gonna be the same, but it's still good."

"I'm glad."

There was a lull, after that, where all she could hear was Ren's breathing. And the snoring, obviously. She let her eyes droop closed. Sometimes she got so used to dragging Ren into her world of danger and excitement, she forgot just how nice these little moments in _his_ world could be.

There was a limit, though.

"How about you?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Things have finally settled after the incident with Torchwick," he said. "I'd forgotten how comfortable the team was at the very beginning of the year."

Nora made a distressed noise.

"It's partly my own fault for making it more tense. I wasn't the only one, but... even so. I'm glad things were resolved."

They lapsed into another sleepy silence. Nora didn't feel quite as calm this time, though. She wasn't totally sure why. Then again, normally when she didn't know how she was feeling she would figure it out halfway through saying it to Ren.

"Do you ever feel like people are like magnets?" she asked.

"I can see the analogy. Unless you meant Pyrrha?"

"Nope. My team is kind of like one magnet, and you're another, and they're both super strong and sometimes I'm worried they're gonna start pulling in opposite directions and something's gonna break." Ren's eyes weren't half-lidded with sleep anymore. Nora stopped talking, feeling pretty surprised herself.

Then, he reached up and touched her nose.

"You did the thing!" Yang's snoring hitched.

"Shh!"

"Oops, sorry."

Ren waited a moment, until her teammate's breathing evened out again. Then, "I'm not going anywhere, Nora. I promise."

"I know. And in the beginning of the year that meant that I wasn't worried about the magnet thing, because one of them was really weak and it would just pop off if there was a problem. Only now it's stronger, so I think it would hurt if that happened."

"The perils of human attachment."

"I guess I forgot what worrying about that is like."

Ren shifted where he sat, making the sheets on his mattress rustle. "You never worried about us?"

"Sometimes." Nora grinned at him, even if he probably couldn't see it in the dark. "But I knew I wasn't gonna leave, and I knew you weren't gonna leave."

"Sometimes people don't have a choice, Nora."

"Yeah." She rested her head on her arm again. "I know. I try not to think about that."

Another hum.

"'Night, Ren."

"Goodnight, Nora."


	30. Tensile Testing [3]

"Left!"

Pyrrha lunged forward and slammed her xiphos into Jaune's shield. He backed away.

"Right!"

This time he parried with his sword, still retreating.

"High!"

Another block with the shield. He kept it over his head longer than he needed to, almost cowering.

"Okay." Pyrrha lowered her weapon. "That was good!"

Jaune flushed, letting both of his arms drop. "You don't have to lie to me."

"I'm serious! You're showing real improvement after just twenty minutes. That's impressive." Though, how he'd even _gotten_ to Beacon without knowing how to hold his shield properly was something of a mystery to her.

In the background, she could hear Ruby and Sky clashing. He would yelp occasionally, followed by her partner shouting, "Sorry!" or, "My bad!"

Jaune looked around after one particularly pained noise from Sky. He was panting, trying to get his breath back, but he still managed to say, "You're a good teacher."

"Thank you."

In all honesty, Pyrrha had no idea what she was doing. She'd been the student, not the instructor, for just about her entire life. So, she was teaching Jaune the way she'd learned when she was young—namely, showing him each attack position and block and then beating them into him. Gently. Or, well, as gently as possible. She wasn't pulling her punches _that_ much—his aura made him quite durable—but she _was_ slowing things down.

She glanced around just in time to see Ruby straighten up and grin at Sky. "Okay, I'm going to come at you full speed for a sec. Ready?"

"Heck no."

"Great!"

Pyrrha stared as her partner disappeared into a flurry of red and black. Poor Sky managed a few solid blocks, spinning his halberd in his hands and retreating as quickly as he could while maintaining his footwork. He lasted for all of half a second before being knocked onto his butt.

"Awesome!" Ruby planted her scythe in the ground. "You're getting way faster."

"Ungh."

"Are you sure that's, um... helping?" Jaune asked.

Ruby shrugged. "It's what my uncle did."

"You, too?" Pyrrha asked, chuckling despite herself. "My instructor used to make me drill with weights on."

"Yes! I had to carry all our lunches and supplies and junk! And I mean, it made me stronger but I still think he was just being lazy."

"If nothing else," Sky groaned, getting slowly to his feet, "the Grimm are going to seem like they're trying to swim through honey."

"Uh." Jaune shifted nervously. "Are you going to do that?"

Pyrrha considered it. "Not just yet," she decided. "When I learned, I had to practice with the basic blocks before I could try and use them against my instructor. Otherwise I would forget them the second she attacked me."

He sagged in relief. "Oh, good."

"Now. Ready your weapons."

Jaune dropped into a crouch, raising both sword and... shield. Pyrrha frowned. "Your shield is still too high," she said. He lowered it a fraction. "Much better. Who told you to hold it like that?"

He shrugged. "In initiation Blake kept telling me to keep it up, so..."

"Hmm. How were you holding it before, do you think?"

He dropped it further, and Pyrrha winced. "Ah. Try and keep it in between those two positions—yes, just like that."

"Okay."

"It's going to feel heavy after a while, but the more you practice the stronger your arm is going to get." Pyrrha paused for a moment. "Oh, and remember that if you start dropping it during drills, I might take another leaf out of my instructor's book and strap extra weights to your arm."

Jaune paled. "Understood."

"You know," Sky panted, "I'm starting to think the problem isn't necessarily that Jaune and I are bad at fighting, it's just that we got skipped over when they were handing out psychotically intense trainers."

"Until now!" Ruby reminded him.

"Until now."

Pyrrha smiled at that. Then she called out, "Right!" and the drills started again. She made sure to vary the blows, and after he started getting into a rhythm she changed up the pacing, too. She wouldn't attack him from the wrong side—her instructor had done it, but she had the sense that she could accomplish the same thing much more kindly by telling him she was going to stop calling out what side she was attacking from.

Either way, she didn't think he'd be ready for that for a while. She was starting to see Sky's point. It wasn't that Jaune was _bad,_ exactly, it was just that he didn't seem to have had _any_ formal training. That was... bizarre, though she supposed there might be some other reason he was admitted. Sky had told them that his academics had balanced out his combat scores, so perhaps for Jaune it was... something else. His aura? He _was_ unusually resilient for someone who wasn't a fighter yet.

"Okay," she said, when he started getting sloppy. "Rest for a moment." He nodded, his face flushed and sweaty. "How has your team been holding up?"

"Uh, good? I mean, better than they were, anyway." He seemed almost uncomfortable, like he hadn't expected small talk. Pyrrha frowned.

"I know you told us Cardin is acting more manageable."

"Yeah." He wiped his forehead with the back of one hand, making his hair stand up in all directions. Then he tried to flatten it down again. "I hope so."

"And I noticed, um... Blake."

Another stiff nod. "Yep."

"I can't imagine that went over well with the other two."

"Weiss already knew," he said. "It's just Cardin, and we're, uh... managing."

"Right." She tilted her head, taking in the way he was slouching a little and looking at his feet. "You know... I really don't bite."

His head snapped up. "I know!" he blurted. Then he rubbed at his neck. "Uh... sorry."

Pyrrha swallowed and hurriedly went back to the exercises. Jaune took them up again without complaint, though he looked exhausted. She probably wasn't driving him as hard as she had been in the beginning, now, because she couldn't seem to get her mind off the way he'd just been acting. Like she wasn't a student anymore, but a _teacher._

Eventually she forced herself to stop again before Jaune keeled over. "I think that's enough drills for today," she decided, and he let out a little whine and melted onto the grass.

"Cool!" Ruby stood back and planted the butt of her scythe in the ground. Sky stood with his hands on his knees, wheezing, and occasionally looking up to eye the blade of her weapon like it might attack him of its own volition.

"Do you want to try working with your semblance?" Pyrrha asked Jaune. He looked blearily up in her direction.

"Huh? Oh. Um... I don't know if I can do it, or how I did it, or..."

"Well, that's what we'd be trying to learn," she pointed out.

"Right."

"You found your semblance?" Sky asked, turning to stare.

Jaune nodded. "Just a few days ago."

Sky grinned, but it didn't look quite natural. "Congratulations!"

"What about you?"

Ho looked down at the ground, still trying to keep up the smile and failing. "Uh, no. No idea what it is."

"It'll happen," Ruby assured him.

Sky shrugged. "I guess I'm last to the party."

"Nope."

He looked up at her, startled. "Wait, what?"

"Well, um..." Ruby looked a bit embarrassed. "I'm not totally sure if... nah, it's probably fine. He doesn't keep it a secret or anything, so... Yang mentioned once that Russel doesn't know his, either. Neither does Dove. Or maybe he does, but I've never seen him use it."

"And I only found mine less than a week ago," Jaune added.

"I guess." Sky still looked a little down, but he covered it with a grin. "I'm surprised about Dove, though. Seems like he would've sat in a room somewhere and meditated until it happened."

"That doesn't always work, though," Ruby said. "Like, with mine? I was running away from Yang, I think I'd just dropped a spider on her or something—"

Jaune cracked up.

"Wha—hey! I'm trying to be serious here!"

"You dropped a spider on her?"

"Maybe? It was a while ago, I don't remember!" She coughed, trying to collect whatever scraps of solemnity remained to her. "Anyway. I never would've found it if I'd just hung around thinking seriously or whatever."

Jaune got a pensive look on his face. "Yeah," he said eventually. "I don't think mine would have come out until something bad happened. There had to be a real life-or-death situation."

"See?" Ruby nodded to herself. "It's different for everyone. If your semblance hasn't shown up yet, it might just have a really specific use, or maybe it's waiting for the right time."

"I guess so," Sky said. He still looked frustrated, but less than before. He mustered up a more genuine-looking smile. "So... I guess now we try to poke Jaune's aura 'till it does... what _does_ your semblance do, anyway?"

Jaune perked up almost immediately and launched into the full story. It tripped something in the back of Pyrrha's mind, a sense that something had changed—or, rather, gone back to normal. She was part of the conversation, one student among several, a flesh-and-blood person.

And the only way she would have noticed was if, just for a moment, she _hadn't_ been.

* * *

"Stupid Dove and his stupid library obsession," Russel grumbled. Dove—who was standing about three feet away—shot him an irritated look.

"If I don't force you, you won't do it," he pointed out. "Now write your essay."

Russel plopped down in the nearest chair and rested his forehead on a table. The rest of his team came and sat around him, with Yang to his left and Nora to his right. Both of them were taking out textbooks. He should _probably_ be doing that, too, but...

"Ugh. Do I have to?"

"Yes," Dove groaned, exasperated. Nora gave Russel a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

_"Ugh."_

He started flipping through the textbook for inspiration. They were supposed to cough up at least two pages about a 'Modern conflict that connects to the Faunus Rights Revolution,' and as tempted as he was to just describe the fight with Torchwick and the mysterious White Fang Paladins, he was pretty sure that wasn't what Oobleck had in mind. His eyes skimmed over the pages more or less at random, until he noticed someone else out of the corner of his eye.

"Sky!" he called out. "I'm gonna start thinking you're stalking me!"

The other boy nearly jumped out of his skin. "Uh," he said, walking over to a normal conversation distance from their table. He'd gone bright red. "I'm not, I swear."

"I know." Russel smirked, then winced as Yang elbowed him in the side. "Ouch. Sorry. What do you want, anyway?"

Sky fidgeted for a second, then asked, "Do you know your semblance?"

Russel chuckled. "Sit down, m'boy," he said, mimicking Port. "This is gonna be a long one." He waited for Sky to pull up a chair and lean in, his expression rapt. He cleared his throat three times. Then, "Nope."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"You've been waiting to do that to someone since you got here, haven't you?" Yang guessed.

"Oh, totally." Russel grinned apologetically at Sky. "It's true, though. I've got no clue."

Sky nodded. "Yeah, me neither. I was just wondering... how do you actually go about finding it?"

"Trust me," Nora said, "You _don't_ want to find out like I did."

Russel thought about that for a second. "How _do_ you find out you're immune to electricity? Did you stick a fork in a socket—wait, no, you totally did that, didn't you?"

"No!" Nora paused. "Well, _yeah,_ but that was after I found out it wouldn't hurt me."

Yang leaned in. "Okay, now I'm curious."

Nora gave a shrug. "Well, it was really stormy..."

"Oh, no."

"And I _might_ have been in a tree."

"Oh, _no!"_

"And it took, like, two hours for Ren's heart rate to go back to normal, but it was _fine."_ Russel exchanged a look with Sky, who had gone pale as a ghost. He couldn't really blame him. Leave it to Nora to get struck by _lightning._

"How'd you figure yours out?" he asked his partner.

Yang grinned. "Okay, so for context—my uncle is a bit of a drinker."

"I don't like where this is going," Russel decided, in about half a second.

She furrowed her brow at him. "What? No! Shut up and let me tell the story. He's not mean or violent, if anything he was kind of like an extra dad when we needed one. Great guy. _But,_ he can be weirdly clumsy sometimes, or maybe just unlucky. _So._ He spills booze on his shirt."

Russel's eyes went wide. "Ooh. I love where this is going." Nora flicked him in the forehead. "Hey!"

"Right." Yang cracked her knuckles. "We're at this barbecue, me and Ruby and my dad and Uncle Qrow. And there's this kid that's a year older than me who thinks it's a good idea to pick on her."

"Rest in pieces."

"That was the idea. Except he was practically twice my weight and he was another Hunter kid, so he had his aura unlocked. I get punched and wipe out. Ruby panics, I go ballistic, and I don't realize I'm on fire until Qrow tries to pick me up to get me off him."

Nora's expression is somewhere between horror and awe. "And, his shirt...?"

"Fwoosh."

Russel and Nora both burst into laughter at the same time. Yang looked at them for a moment, bemused, then joined in.

"Yeah," she said finally. "Careful where you find your semblance. Ruby ran into the side of the house the first time she used hers, made this huge dent in the wall."

Sky's head hit the table with a dull thud. "Now I'm worried I'm going to cause a natural disaster."

"Speaking of which!" Russel perked up. "We should test our immunity to meteors. That way I won't have to hand in this essay."

"No blowing up the school," Yang and Nora reminded him in unison, then broke out in giggles.

"What about you?" Sky asked Dove—maybe because he wanted to know, maybe because he was too terrified to ask why the phrase, 'no blowing up the school,' was an inside joke.

Russel and the others all turned to look at their leader. He shrugged. "I haven't needed to use it," he said.

"Bu— _huh?"_ Russel protested. "I thought you didn't know what it was!"

He spread his arms helplessly. "Well, in the beginning of initiation I was saving it in case we needed to fight a whole horde. Then _someone—"_ he glared at Nora, "—decided it would be a good idea to _ride_ the King Taijitu. By the time we were done with _that,_ I'd almost drowned, so I wasn't really in any shape to fight."

Yang nodded slowly. "Okay, I get that. But... why not use it at all since then?"

"We've only been fighting humans." Dove gave another little shrug. "My semblance is pretty specific about how it can be used. It's a pale light, or maybe a mist, on my weapons and armor. My attacks do just a little more damage to the Grimm, and they have just a little more trouble hurting me. I can't activate it at all if there isn't a monster to fight, and as far as I can tell it doesn't do anything to other people."

"Cool," said Russel. "But I still can't believe you waited this long to say anything."

"It never came up."

Russel narrowed his eyes. "Did you want to bust it out without warning and look like a badass?"

"That's ridiculous." Dove's expression was perfectly neutral, and Russel couldn't actually tell whether or not he was embarrassed by the accusation, let alone if it was true. If his leader thought that was going to save him from relentless mockery, he had another thing coming.

* * *

Weiss slowly tipped her head to one side, hissing in a breath through her teeth as her vertebrae realigned. The action left her neck feeling, if anything, even stiffer than before. Her eyes ached with the effort of reading the fine print of the book in front of her, and it was all she could do to keep them open. The words blurred to the point that she could barely read them.

What she _could_ read wasn't helpful. It was a detailed description of the fall of Mountain Glenn, which meant that it contained some absolute _gems—_ like the story of a group of people that had supposedly survived in a fortified grocery store for nearly three days after the incident, radioing for help that didn't arrive in time. The original copy of this book had been restricted for it's visceral descriptions and disturbing images. Most readers had no need for all the gory details, and they would only cause negative emotions that drew more Grimm. It had been reissued, and now there were little black bands peppering its pages, covering sentences and bits of images here and there. Professor Oobleck might have lent her the original if she asked, but she thought it would be better to read through what she could and ask for only the most useful books, in case he was reluctant to part with too many of them.

She flipped a page and flinched. There was a picture taken nearly a year after the event, showing the interior of someone's house. A shelf had been upended, scattering books and knickknacks all over the floor. Something _else_ had trodden on them, thick claws rending apart bits of paper, which were now yellowed with age and exposure to the elements. At the other end of the room, something was covered with more black bars. It didn't take a genius to assume they were what was left of a person. If this was how disturbing the book was _with_ the censorship, she wasn't sure she wanted to see the original.

Beside the photo, there was an analysis of the objects in the room, the drag marks, what they could tell about the blood spatter after using a particular Dust mixture to reveal traces of iron. Someone had knocked over the bookshelf in an attempt to block the door, but hadn't moved in time. They'd retreated to the back of the room, grabbing the nearest thing to hand—a poker. It obviously hadn't done them much good.

Weiss slammed the book shut and shoved it away from her. "Why would anyone _write_ this?" she demanded. Blake glanced up from her own work and frowned.

"What is it?"

"It's..." Weiss groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Nothing. It's nothing."

Blake looked unconvinced, but she nodded and went back to reading. Weiss opened the book again and started flicking through the pages, trying to find where she'd left off. Then she glanced up, studying her partner's face. Her eyes were puffy from lack of sleep. She'd been in the library by the time Weiss woke up—at around eight in the morning, thanks to Jaune falling out of bed—and had to be cajoled into eating a bit of toast. Weiss had also made her promise to wake her the next morning before she started.

Now she was poring over a record of various investors into the original colony. Apparently, the SDC wasn't on it—it hadn't been as potent a force at the time, and her grandfather had concerned himself with _Dust,_ not colonies. A few other modern companies with outdated policies on faunus _were,_ but none that had been targeted by the White Fang.

"I don't see the connection," she admitted. "What happened at Mountain Glenn and the treatment of faunus are both awful, but apart from that they have _nothing_ in common."

"There was a higher proportion of faunus in Mountain Glenn," Blake said, "but not by much. I don't really see it either. We just have to keep looking."

"It's..." Weiss did a double take as she checked her scroll. "It's half past six, we should stop."

"I will, I just want to finish this."

"Blake, have you eaten _anything_ since this morning?"

"I'm not hungry."

Weiss worried at her lower lip, wondering if she should just leave and come back with meals for each of them. But she'd promised to help with research, and it didn't sit right to wander off in the middle of it.

She turned another page in the book in front of her and was greeted with a photo of the undercity—the people of Mountain Glenn's last desperate bid for survival. The author had been an archaeologist who had gone into the failed colony with a team of Hunters and had documented anything and everything she could find. She'd been the one to discover why there weren't as many bodies in the main city as they'd expected. It had been much too late for them, by then.

The next page was the beginning of what the archaeologist could find in one tunnel that had been sealed off entirely. There had been two men inside—maybe brothers, maybe friends, maybe boyfriends—and they had apparently had the horrible foresight to stock up on food, which meant they had still been alive when Creeps tunneled inside.

She had to turn away from the page for a moment, her heart hammering. What were they _doing?_ This wasn't even relevant to the White Fang. _Nothing_ she read seemed to be relevant. There were still more than half a hundred tons of Dust, probably being used to make bombs, and they had _nothing!_ And not for lack of trying, either. She hadn't had a full night's sleep in days, Blake was teetering on the edge of shutting down, and all she was doing was sitting here reading about civilians locked inside tunnels with Grimm. _Useless._

Running a hand through her hair, she tried to focus on the page again. A whole paragraph was blotted out, but judging from context it was a description of what the author had inferred from nicks on the bones. Weiss nearly cried out with relief when she was interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind her.

Turning, she found Jaune hovering awkwardly between two shelves, giving them a very strange look. "Um, hey," he said.

"What do you want?" Blake asked, a bit shortly.

He held out two paper bags. "I brought lunch." He winced. "I guess it's more like dinner, now, but I was waiting for you to come back to the room. Then I realized you probably weren't going to until curfew, so..."

Weiss took both bags and deposited one on Blake's side of the table. "Thank you," she said, mustering up a small smile.

Jaune shifted from foot to foot, obviously uneasy. "Look... don't take this the wrong way or anything, but you guys seem really stressed. And tired. And like you haven't been eating enough."

"Thank you for your concern." Blake hadn't touched the food. "But we're fine."

He didn't move. "Are you? If it's a problem with schoolwork or something, I—okay, _I_ can't help, but I know people you could—"

"We're _fine,_ Jaune," Weiss snapped. She regretted it an instant later—for one thing, he looked like a kicked puppy, and for another he was right.

"Sure." Jaune folded his arms, looking irritated. "You guys are _totally_ fine and there's no way you're missing sleep. Because when you miss sleep you get _grumpy,_ and neither of you are grumpy _at all."_

Blake's jaw clenched. "Do you have a point?"

"I want to know what's going on."

Weiss exchanged a look with Blake. "We're handling it," she said.

"That's not—"

"Please, just drop it."

He huffed out a breath through his nose. "Fine. I'll pretend to believe you for now. Just... will you at least get some sleep?"

"We'll be back before curfew," Blake replied.

"That's not what I asked." He left anyway.

Weiss leaned back in her chair, wincing as her stiff neck rolled from side to side. "Maybe we _should_ tell him."

Blake sat up so quickly that she knocked her paper bag to the floor. She made no move to retrieve it. "What? Why?"

"We obviously can't do this all ourselves!" Weiss threw her hands up in exasperation. "We're trying to bring down a terrorist organization, that isn't the kind of thing that two people can accomplish alone."

"What, do you want to bring in _Cardin?"_ Blake rolled her eyes. "That'll help."

Weiss grimaced. "No, I wouldn't want that."

Blake breathed out through her nose, then groaned. "Do you think it would really help?"

"Probably not." Weiss rubbed at her temple, where she could feel a tension headache forming. It wasn't like Jaune and Cardin would add much to their research, and if it came down to a fight with the White Fang... she wasn't sure they'd stand a better chance with all four of them involved than only two. They'd just be putting their teammates in danger for nothing.

They were silent for a moment after that, until Blake made a frustrated snarling noise and pushed herself to her feet. "What's the point of a comprehensive list of investors when some of the names are redacted? How is the name of a company supposed to be 'provocative'?!"

"I don't think we're going to find anything," Weiss admitted. "It's not like there's going to be a chapter on the mysterious secret clubhouse the White Fang is rumored to hide out in."

"No," Blake gritted out. "But _someone_ might have written down where the entrance to the subway was. If we knew that, we could look around for clues on where they're going next."

Weiss studied her hands. "Maybe we should tell someone. Anonymously, I mean. In case we don't find anything, or... I don't know. If we can't stop it, at least we could point someone else in the right direction."

"That's not a bad idea."

"Ozpin, maybe?" Weiss suggested, standing up and closing the book in front of her. "We could go to the CCT and send a message on one of their terminals, as a guest."

"What, now?"

Weiss gestured at the piles of books and notes around them. "Yes, now! My eyes keep crossing and I know you can't be that much better off. We can take a break for a moment while we send a message, then get back to it."

Blake hesitated. "You don't need me with you to send the message. I could keep going—"

"Blake."

Her partner looked up, startled. There were shadows under her eyes that hadn't been there a few days ago. Something in Weiss' gut clenched. "You're coming with me. And you're eating that... whatever it is, in the bag."

"I don't—"

"If you keep going like this, you're going to faint or something." Weiss put her hands on her hips. "We'll be an hour or so, tops."

Blake followed reluctantly after her, unwrapping a sandwich from the bag and biting into it. Weiss tried hers and found that they were ham and cheese, delicious and homemade—probably by Jaune himself. She made a mental note to get him to do that again when exams came around.

As they entered, Blake drew a few stares. Word had spread around Beacon, but every now and then someone who hadn't heard would do a double-take when they passed. It helped that the CCT wasn't crowded. It was dinnertime on a Saturday, and most people had already finished with whatever calls they wanted to make. Weiss felt her stomach twist just looking around the lobby—Father _still_ hadn't contacted her.

They took the elevator to the third floor and went over to a cluster of research terminals. Weiss glanced around nervously, wondering if they might be caught on camera. She and Blake sat down at adjacent stations, both anxious and twitchy.

"I'll do it," Weiss said.

She didn't know _that_ much about the use of terminals, but she did manage to set up an email account under the name 'littlebirdie' _—_ Blake had cracked a smile at that, which left Weiss feeling somewhere between smug and flattered—and send a message on a delay of three hours and seventeen minutes. It was simple and to the point: _White Fang in Mountain Glenn with Dust explosives._

They left shortly after that, though each of them also printed articles for a recent Dust Theory project to give them an excuse to be at those terminals. Not completely foolproof, but it was the best they could do. Anyway, if only half of what Jaune said was true, Ozpin would be more likely to give them a pat on the back and some cryptic advice than an actual punishment.

After their business at the CCT they went straight to the dorm, because it was nearly eight anyway. Their other teammates were both in their sleeping clothes. Cardin had a toothbrush poking out of his mouth and enough foam around it that he looked rabid. Jaune was so relieved to see they'd eaten the sandwiches that it made Weiss guilty all over again.

She and Blake both sat on their beds and buried themselves in books. Jaune tried to ask what they were about once or twice, then gave up. Eventually he started hinting that he might turn the lights out. Weiss ignored that—when he did, she'd just go back to the bathroom.

Then, halfway through a grueling reconstruction of the moments directly following the subway tunnels being sealed off—with no mention of where in the city the entrance actually _was—_ her scroll started to buzz. She startled so badly that the book in her lap spilled onto the floor.

Jaune stood up, looking concerned. "Are you okay?"

She ignored him, grabbed her scroll off her bedside table and flicked the answer button before her nerve failed her entirely.

"Weiss." His voice was cool and crisp, and she almost dropped the scroll.

"Hello, Father." She looked around, briefly considering stepping outside. The last thing she wanted was to be caught breaking curfew in the middle of talking to him, though, so she headed instead to the bathroom and shut herself inside.

"You know why I'm calling." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"In the wake of the incident, I've had several discussions with Vale's council and police force."

"Of course." Weiss frowned. She hadn't expected him to share details like this.

"They're either utterly incompetent or complicit." He scoffed. "In all likelihood most are one, a few are the other, and the rest are both." She had a feeling the 'few' he was talking about were the few faunus on the force.

"I doubt any of them are in league with the Fang."

"I'm not looking for your insight," he snapped. She bit back her response and waited while he composed himself.

"I've been contacting everyone I can think of by scroll," he said eventually, in a more neutral tone. "And all that has accomplished is proving that I need to devote more attention to the problem." _Why are you telling me this?_

"Personal attention," he added.

Her throat tightened. Surely he didn't mean...

"I'm coming to Vale."

It was all she could do not to drop the scroll. "You... _what?"_

"I won't repeat myself."

"How long are you staying?"

"As long as I need to." He made an irritated noise. "Considering the magnitude of the problem? Several days at the least, I expect it will be closer to two weeks."

Weiss struggled for words. "Well... I'm sure you'll be busy."

"Very," he said, "but I will make time to visit."

She squeezed her eyes shut and managed a weak, "Oh." Then she rallied. "When will you—"

"I'm on the airship now." He paused. "Inform your teammates." Then he hung up.

Weiss stared blankly at nothing for a while, trying to wrap her mind around what she'd just heard. She had to put hand over mouth so that she wouldn't start laughing—it was too much, and she was so _tired._

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. "Weiss? Are you okay?"

Blake.

Blake, who would meet her father in a few days at most.

"I'm fine."

Blake opened the door. "Are you sure? I heard—" she stopped, noticing the look on Weiss' face.

"He's coming to Vale," she found herself saying. "To deal with security issues."

Blake's horrified expression was a gratifying—Weiss wasn't the only one who understood how bad this was, at least. "You mean... he won't be..."

"Yes."

 _"Here?_ When?"

"By tomorrow."

_"What?"_

"What's going on?" Jaune poked his head over Blake's shoulder.

"My Father is coming to Beacon." It sounded entirely made-up, now that he wasn't on the line. "I think he wants to meet you." And that was _so_ much worse.

"Oh." Jaune blinked. "Okay."

Blake's hand flew to her ears. "What if he finds out?"

She glanced at her partner, then down at the floor. "I hate to ask..."

"The bow. I know."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

It wasn't. Even putting aside the _many_ problems with Blake being forced to go back into hiding only days after she'd finally stopped, some things couldn't be taken back. People around Beacon had already seen. Weiss hoped most would be decent enough not to say anything, and she _knew_ most wouldn't want to talk to Father under any circumstances—he had that effect on people. But _some..._

"What's your problem?" Cardin called out from back in the room.

Weiss stalked out of the bathroom and leveled a finger in his general direction. "My Father is coming to Beacon," she said. "And if you say anything about Blake, I will no longer have any reason to worry about being suspended for committing _homicide."_

Cardin smirked. "Ooh. Scary."

She let herself smile. It was the only kind of smile she could make, under the circumstances—toothy, sharp-edged, and probably deranged. "Cardin," she said sweetly, "shut up."

He shut up.


	31. Tensile Testing [4]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hhhhhhh so I've been scooting this over from FFN by copy-pasting the "preview" section, and I just wanna take a second to be kinda bitter about the 800 error 503 messages I've been getting in the process.

The bow itched.

Blake could still vividly remember the illicit thrill she'd gotten out of covering her ears for the first time, the invisibility it had granted her. It had been necessary for a long time, and eventually she had gotten so used to it that she had stopped noticing. But now? Knowing that just yesterday, she'd been walking around Beacon with nothing to hide? Feeling the air on her fur? Letting her ears twitch in time with her moods, without worrying about whether or not people would notice?

It itched, in both the literal and metaphorical sense.

Still, she tied on the bow and reminded herself that it was hardly Weiss' fault that her father had the world's worst timing. Or that he was utterly terrifying to a closet faunus. Or that he may or may not go ballistic and pull her out of Beacon if Blake messed up. She swallowed hard.

Once her ears were hidden, she got dressed in her uniform—she didn't have anything really formal, and she felt like wearing her combat outfit would tempt her too much. She'd already brushed her teeth, twice, done and redone her makeup, and coaxed any possible tangles out of her hair. All that was left to do was wait for the other three.

Or, as it turned out, wait for Weiss to wind herself up until she snapped. She came out of the bathroom in a near-frenzy, tidying up the dorm and snapping at Jaune to _please,_ for the love of all that is holy, change out of those pants—"There's a hole in them and I can see your boxers, _how_ have you not noticed?!" He looked down, startled, then flushed and moved to his rucksack.

Suddenly, Blake found herself under the microscope. Weiss must not have slept very well—there were shadows under her eyes, and the left one was bloodshot—but her gaze was laser-focused. She chewed her lip and dusted some imaginary lint off Blake's shoulder. Then she straightened the ribbon at her collar, muttered something under her breath that sounded like, _'They're going to kill each other,'_ and stepped back.

Blake couldn't help but remember the minutes before their... _extracurricular_ mission, especially when Weiss' eyes moved to the bow on her head and her brow furrowed. It was, in a way, a mask just like the balaclava she'd been desperately trying to tuck all that Schnee-white hair into—meant to hide some aspect of themselves that would make them a target.

Hopefully her disguise would hold up longer than Weiss'. She didn't want to end up in a fight with her partner's father. With her background she would be crucified by the media in a heartbeat, and even if she came out ahead in that confrontation... he might decide Beacon wasn't a safe place for his daughter.

By the time they were out the door and on their way to breakfast, she was already thinking fondly back to when they were infiltrating a top secret White Fang base full of people who wanted them dead, instead of marching inevitably closer to the man Blake had been hating from a distance her entire life, and from a much _smaller_ distance in more recent months.

Growing up, she'd known him as Jacques Schnee, a one-time ambitious nobody who married into the Schnee family and grew the SDC from _a_ mining company into _the_ mining company. He'd created thousands of jobs for faunus workers, and had then proceeded to lower their wages to a mere pittance and treat them like replaceable droids. Now? She knew him as the vague entity that sometimes brushed against her life, when Weiss would hear her scroll go off and tense up. If anything, she was starting to despise that presence even _more._

Breakfast was much too short. Blake felt like she was trying to hold water in her hands, letting precious seconds slip through her fingers and finding herself closer and closer to the inevitable meeting. Jaune and Cardin were the only ones who talked—the former was picking up on their nerves and chattering to fill the silence, and the latter didn't seem to care about Weiss' father at all. They were also the only ones who ate. Jaune picked at a waffle and managed about half of it over the span of about forty minutes, while his partner wolfed down a stack of pancakes and then leaned back with a satisfied expression on his face. Blake nibbled at a bit of fruit and stopped when her stomach turned. Weiss didn't even bother trying.

Then it was over, and they were moving towards the airfield. Blake felt like she was marching to her own execution, which was technically an exaggeration, but... well, if he _did_ find out who she was and where she came from... "Jaune?" she said, as they passed through the courtyard. "What do you do when you're airsick?"

"Throw up?"

She winced. "Do you know any breathing exercises that help?"

He stared at her. "Uh, no? Why?"

"No reason."

Weiss reached out and squeezed her hand. Blake wasn't sure if that was for her benefit or her partner's, but it was helpful either way. Her breathing steadied a little, but only a little. She was still about to meet a man whose assassination she'd heard planned in gory detail by at least a half a dozen people she'd been on a first-name basis with.

Some of the other students stared as they passed. Blake tried not to meet anyone's eyes—the few expressions she caught felt accusing. They knew, now, and a little black bow wasn't enough to hide what she was. Any one of them could let something slip in front of Weiss' father.

Finally, they reached the airship platform and stood in a row, with Weiss at one end and Cardin at the other. Blake could feel her own heartbeat in her fingertips. "When's he supposed to get here?" Cardin demanded, sounding bored and irritated. Blake wished she were bored and irritated. She was hyperaware of the feeling of the tips of her ears brushing against the fabric of her bow, chafing. Her hand came up to trace its edges, to make sure that no fur was visible.

Weiss pulled out her scroll and checked the time. "About ten minutes from now."

"Maybe he's late?" Jaune asked.

She pursed her lips. "He's never late unless he wants to be."

At the eight minute mark, a flash of silver appeared on the horizon. At six minutes, it had grown to the point where they could see the elegant sweep of its wings, the gentle curves of its body. It was an airship, obviously Atlesian in design. At four minutes, the Schnee snowflake became visible on its side.

It landed at ten o'clock on the dot, and Blake's stomach dropped. She was itching to turn and bolt, but that would only make things worse. A door opened in the side of the hull, folding out into a staircase. The man himself descended, unhurried. She could tell even from a distance that he was the sort of person who kept himself pristine—his pale suit was crisp and unwrinkled even after a long flight, and his snowy hair was nearly combed. Blake had to remind herself that it was age rather than genetics that had made it that shade of white. Then he turned his head toward them, and it was all she could do not to bolt.

The worst thing? She could see the resemblance. His face was more angular, but the curve of his mouth was identical. His eyes were narrower, but they were the exact same shade of blue. It went deeper than that, too—the intensity in his expression, the regal tilt to his chin, the hint of swagger in his step, they were all achingly familiar. Blake tried to focus on the mustache—it was incongruous, almost silly, and above all it was very unlike her partner.

He stopped beside his daughter and smiled politely. "Weiss." Then he reached out and curled a hand around the back of her neck. Weiss ducked her head a little, her shoulders tensing.

"Father." The second he removed his hand, she took a small step away from him and turned towards her team. "This is my partner, Blake Belladonna."

Blake tensed, watching him carefully for any sign of recognition. It would be just her luck that he'd bothered to learn the names of the people protesting his company. But he didn't seem to notice anything. He merely smiled again.

"It's a pleasure," he said.

He held out a hand, and she wanted to tip her head back and laugh. She wanted to run, because he didn't know and it felt like if she touched him he'd be able to tell from how sweaty her palms were. She wanted to rip off the bow and throw it in his face. Once upon a time she'd felt proud of who she was, and maybe that pride had been warped by her time in the White Fang but it had been coming back, in little fits and starts, and now she had to swallow it. She wanted him to see, to face him openly, but if she did that then he'd try to make Weiss come back to Atlas. It burned that her partner might let him.

"Likewise," she lied. She refused to let herself flinch when she touched his palm. It was cool, smooth. He didn't squeeze as hard as he could, like Cardin would whenever he had to shake someone's hand.

Just behind him, Blake could see Weiss looking from one to the other like she was expecting an explosion. Then, finally, he turned back to his daughter. "And the others?"

"Of course. This is Cardin Winchester." She'd gone out of order. Odd.

Jacques looked him over with the same critical eye and held out his hand. "Ah, Winchester. I've done business with your father."

Cardin nodded, smirking. "Probably. Our family is old money, you know." The implied _unlike you_ hung in the air. He didn't make any move to shake the offered hand. Weiss cringed.

Her father just stared at him for a moment. His smile didn't falter. "Quite," he said eventually, putting the hand to his chest and inclining his head. "He's told me a great deal about your illustrious family history."

There was just enough emphasis placed on the word _history_ to make it an insult, and the barest ghost of a smirk to show that he had fully intended it to be noticed. Cardin turned bright red and opened his mouth to say something he probably thought was downright scathing.

"And this—" Weiss interrupted hurriedly, "—is Jaune Arc. He's our leader." Had she done Cardin first on purpose, just so she could change the subject like this?

Jaune withered under Jacques' attention, mustering up a pained grin and trying his best not to cower. "Uh..." he cleared his throat. "Hello, sir."

"I'm sure I've heard the name Arc before."

"Yes, sir. My grandfather fought in the war."

Jacques nodded. "Indeed." The smile returned. "And you are the team leader—you must have impressed your professors." Jaune went pink. "If you ever find yourself in need, my daughter could always advise you. She's been tutored in tactics, of course."

Blake glanced over his shoulder and saw that Weiss was, if anything, even redder than Jaune. She allowed herself a small grimace, then forced her face into a neutral expression again when her father looked in her direction. "Have you found him satisfactory?"

"I have." Jaune's mouth fell open, and Blake had to step on his foot to get him to close it before Jacques noticed.

"I'm curious—" Jacques started to say, then he stopped. His nostrils flared. "I believe _that_ is new."

Weiss followed his gaze to the scar on her leg. "Oh. Yes."

"I was under the impression this place was relatively safe."

"We're learning to fight Grimm. Injuries happen."

Blake caught the corner of his mouth pulling down, as if he was about to frown. It was gone an instant later. "You could wear stockings."

Weiss' eyes flashed. "I didn't see any need."

He let out a little huff of air, like the ghost of a chuckle that had been smothered in his throat. Then he turned, and his eyes were on Blake again. She straightened, forcing herself to keep still. "I do hope the two of you are keeping out of unnecessary trouble."

Blake forced a smile. _Does he know?_ That was impossible, wasn't it? "Of course, sir." The honorific tasted foul.

He hummed, his mouth curling up in faint amusement. He glanced critically over the two boys, then looked back at Weiss. "You could certainly do much worse." It was at that point that she remembered the _other_ thing that Weiss had told her about Jacques—namely that she'd let him make a few harmless assumptions so that he didn't look too hard at what they were doing. _That was always going to come back to bite us..._

Then she registered what he had _actually said._ It wasn't exactly high praise, but... it was _approval._ When he turned his back for a moment, she caught Weiss' eye and frantically mouthed, _'What?!'_

"I can't stay long," Jacques said, standing a little straighter and giving them all a thin smile—one that turned mocking when he looked at Cardin. Then he nodded to Weiss again. "General Ironwood will be following me here, I don't doubt. Obviously the council have concerns about Ozpin's lackluster security. James is going to be providing some assistance."

"Of course."

Then, his lip curled just slightly. "Winter will likely be accompanying him."

Weiss' face lit up for an instant before she smothered the expression and replaced it with a polite smile. "I'll be sure to greet her, if she has time to visit."

"Quite."

He straightened his tie. "I believe I have time for a tour."

Weiss' smile got a little strained. "Right this way."

It was only after Jacques had turned around and followed his daughter towards Beacon proper that Blake felt she could relax even a hair. She cast a glance to her left and met Jaune's eyes. They were wide, and he looked a bit like someone had just hit him over the head with a golf club.

Blake could empathize.

* * *

"What's up with the airship?" Yang asked, leaning halfway out their dorm window. Sky stood up and peered over her shoulder, confirming that there was indeed an airship flying in. He stared at it for a moment, squinting to try and make out extra detail.

"Probably supplies or something," he guessed. Then he turned to the room at large. Ruby had assembled both RSPR and BRYN for a meeting, which meant that their dorm was cramped and the expectation of future shenanigans hung heavy in the air. Sky had to pause for a moment to pull a binder out from under his bed, then sat down and let it fall open in his lap.

"Okay," he declared. "So we're not looking for _the_ White Fang base. We're looking for _a_ White Fang base."

"There's just too much Dust to store in one place," Dove continued. "They stole almost sixty tons when they hijacked those airships, and _someone_ would have noticed if it was all being hoarded in one spot."

Ren nodded once. "We've been looking into possible locations."

Sky pulled out a map, tugged off the rubber band, then unrolled it with a flick of his wrist. Instead of looking dramatic, the paper ripped and he had to carefully lay it on the floor, weighing down the corners with Ren's textbooks. "Bear with me," he said. "Green stars are abandoned or semi-abandoned locations. Not _all_ of them, I didn't feel like dipping a map in green paint, but all the ones that would be good for storage and are registered as being owned by faunus. Not that the owner being a faunus means it's connected to the White Fang, but there aren't exactly a lot of humans that are members, so. It's somewhere to start."

"Okay." Ruby slid down off her bed to see the map better, and soon enough everyone was crowded around it.

"See the yellow stripes? Those are areas where a high proportion of the population are faunus. Statistically they're way less likely to report shady characters hanging around warehouses or even things like gunshots, because the police sometimes blame them for incidents they're just reporting."

"What about the pink stripes?" asked Nora.

"Those are areas with really low populations in general." Sky tapped a few key areas. "And these yellow-and-pink spots are both. I figured we could start with all the green dots in these areas, and just walk around to see if we can find anything suspicious. Failing that, we move on to places that are just yellow or just pink."

Pyrrha ran her thumb along one highlighted area. "This certainly shows dedication." Sky blushed.

"Okay, so like half of what our research team does is color maps," Nora said, waving a hand. "Not the point. Where should we go first and when do we leave?"

Ruby sat back and grinned. "We've got time. It's Sunday!"

"No splitting up into groups of less than four," Dove said almost instantly. "And everyone make sure you get back by curfew."

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Yang gave him a pat on the shoulder. "So, are we going or no?"

Half an hour later, team RSPR was wandering haplessly through the sketchiest neighborhood Sky had ever seen, and finding very little. Sure, there were lots of abandoned buildings, but they couldn't actually poke around in any of them. For one thing, they were usually locked up and Russel was with team BRYN in another part of Vale. For another...

"Wow." Ruby was staring at the skeleton of a dilapidated building. There was a sign for a Laundromat hanging above its doors, one that was so faded Sky had to squint at it for nearly twenty seconds before he made out the words, _Fresh Press._ By far the most interesting thing about the place was that it was listing forward at a shocking angle, as though it was bowing to its neighbor across the street. "I'm not sure if I'm horrified or just impressed."

"If someone's hiding Dust in there," Sky decided, "We don't have to do anything except wait for it to give up the ghost and collapse."

That was by far the most obviously unsafe building, but it made him _extremely_ suspicious about the structural integrity of any of the other places they passed. In other words? All the lien in the world wouldn't have been enough to make him poke around in one of them looking for dangerous terrorists, and hoping that the floor didn't cave in and dump him in the basement without warning.

All that meant they were mostly doing walk-bys of some of the green dots on the map, hoping to see something suspicious. They weren't even totally sure that the places they were passing _weren't_ hideouts. To top it off, they kept drawing unwelcome stares wherever they went. Sky caught himself hiding behind Ren more than once, which he either didn't notice or was kind enough to ignore.

It made sense, in retrospect. They were four humans, obviously Hunters, wandering around faunus neighborhoods in the wake of a major attack by the White Fang. They were even looking for said terrorist organization, though he liked to think they were more careful than the police about jumping to conclusions. At least twice they'd passed abandoned buildings with faunus faces visible through the windows, but had decided that it was way more likely that they were just looking for shelter and not taking part in anything nefarious. As Ren put it, "We're looking for weapons, masks, or Dust."

They didn't have any luck. By six thirty they were about ready to throw in the towel and head back. Technically they didn't _need_ to go back yet, but it was always better safe than sorry when it came to getting back to Beacon before curfew. Goodwitch was already irritated with them, and Dove would be unbearably smug. It was when they were somewhere on the nebulous border between the pink-and-yellow striped area they'd been searching and the more affluent neighborhood beyond that they found something.

It wasn't weapons, masks, or Dust. They heard a brief scuffle, followed by a female voice snarling, "That's what I thought!"

Sky exchanged a confused look with Ren and the rest of his team, and then the four of them jogged off to investigate. The noise seemed to have come from a nearby alley. It was Ruby that rounded the corner first—she came to a screeching halt and shouted, "Hey!" He nearly bumped into her, then turned his head to see what was going on.

A teenaged boy around Ruby's age was huddled against the side of a dumpster, his red hair sticking up in wild spikes and a rust-colored tail curled around one leg. He had a split lip, and a livid bruise was forming on his jaw. Two others stood in front of him, one a twenty-something woman who only barely made five feet and the other a middle-aged man. Both of them were human.

"What's going on here?" Pyrrha asked from Ruby's other side. The boy took one look at them and paled, squishing himself further against the dumpster.

The woman smiled at them. "Just dealing with some trouble."

"Little thief stole her wallet," the man added.

Ruby took a step forward. "Okay," she said. She turned to the boy. "Do you still have it?"

He shook his head, his eyes fixed on the ground.

"You gave it back?"

A nod.

"Cool." Ruby rubbed at the back of her neck. "Uh, okay. I guess we can take you to the police?"

The man sneered. "They'll let him back on the streets eventually. They always do." He took a step forward, and the boy flinched.

"We don't want pickpockets here," the woman agreed. Sky looked at her and bit his lip. He felt like an ant was crawling up his spine.

"Look, you got your stuff back, right?" Ruby gestured to the boy. "So let's break this up before—"

The woman scoffed. She bent down and picked up a stone.

"Hey!" Ruby took a step forward and grabbed her arm. "Not cool!"

The man gave her a shove that didn't budge her an inch. "What's wrong with you? This little brat tried to mug my niece—"

"A minute ago you said he picked her pocket," Ren said, his voice cold. "He's not even armed."

"So? They've got _teeth."_

The woman tossed the stone to her free hand and threw it at the boy. He yelped and ducked, and it made a sizeable dent in the dumpster. Sky jumped. Ren stepped forward so that he was standing in the way of any more rocks.

"Sky?" Ruby glanced over her shoulder. "We'll make an opening, can you just make sure he doesn't—" The woman jerked away from her, freeing her arm. In the next instant, she was reaching into her purse and drawing out a small purple cylinder. With the press of a button it extended into a throwing axe. She lunged at Ruby, only to clang off Akoúo.

"That's enough," Pyrrha snapped. "Put that away." She made no move to draw her sword.

"You want him to get off scot-free, is that it?!" the man demanded. Incredibly, he took a swing at her. She deflected the punch without taking her eyes off the woman. He yelped and jerked back. _Inactive aura._

"Excuse me, sir," Ren said, gently but firmly taking hold of his shoulders and moving him out of the way. Sky beckoned for the boy, who was still hugging the dumpster.

"We're not going to hurt you, okay? We're just going to take you to the police."

The boy stared incredulously at the axe, then at Sky, and then back again. He supposed that being in Beacon had made him a bit blasé towards concealed weaponry. That, and he was used to tiny people turning out to be terrifying—case-in-point, Nora.

After a moment of gaping, the boy turned and bolted down the alley. Sky tried to chase after him, only to wince when he turned into the street and realized that the guy had disappeared into the crowd.

"You little—" the man seemed to be struggling with words. "He's a thief!"

"Well, yeah," Ruby said, "but I don't think the punishment for that is stoning."

"It's not like I let him go on purpose," Sky grumbled, though he admittedly wasn't _that_ bothered. His sympathies tended to go first to whoever was bleeding, and he had his doubts about whether the kid would get a fair sentence considering everything that was going on.

The woman snarled and lashed out with the axe, only to bounce off Pyrrha's shield again. Then, she looked up at her face and paled. "Pyrrha Nikos," she breathed.

Pyrrha gave a little wave. "Hello!"

"So, uh..." Ruby shifted uncomfortably. "We kinda need to go back to school. How about we do that, and you guys think twice the next time you decide you have the right to throw rocks at people who can't defend themselves?" Her expression turned into a glare. "Because I'm getting really sick of having to fight people acting like jerks instead of the Grimm."

"As am I," Pyrrha agreed.

The woman was still staring at her. Her mouth was open.

"I'll take that as a yes," Ruby decided.

They left the two speechless humans and made it almost a block before Ruby sagged and started muttering under her breath. "Are you alright?" Pyrrha asked.

"Why is it always people?" she whined. "And now it's people I have to _talk_ to! I miss Torchwick."

* * *

"Nothing. Happened." Yang groaned and put her hands on her knees, hanging her head. "Nothing! You'd think we'd at least find a pickpocket or something."

"Being a Huntsman is ninety percent waiting," Dove pointed out.

"I know." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I guess we can't always be lucky enough to have someone try to kill us whenever we go out in Vale."

The look on Dove's face was enough to make her break out laughing. Beside her, Nora followed suit. "Your perspective is terrifying and alien and I want no part in it," he said flatly.

"Aw." Russel leaned on his shoulder. "But without us your life would be so _boring."_

"At least there was food," Nora said, lifting up her... something. They'd bought three of them from a cart and would probably regret it later, but whatever they had been seasoned with had made them lumpy and shapeless and so spicy Yang had nearly choked biting into hers. Needless to say, they were quickly becoming her new favorite thing.

Dove, who had taken one bite and spent the next half-hour recovering, was eying them suspiciously. "When that makes you sick, I _will_ say I told you so."

Russel took a massive bite and said—with his mouth full, because at his core that was who he was as a person—"You're just too much of a wimp to enjoy it."

Poor Dove looked so horrified that Yang just _had_ to take a bite out of hers as well. She winced as she got grease on her hand and pulled it away, only to find that it was connected to the bundle of mystery meat by a few fine ropes of melted cheese. After staring at them for a moment, she started trying to wipe her fingers on the napkin that was only barely keeping the food contained.

It was at that point, while she was distracted and looking down, that she almost bumped into someone who had been walking down Beacon's main walkway in the opposite direction. Yang looked up and inhaled some of her food. That was a man in a suit. A very nice _white_ suit that she _probably_ hadn't gotten any grease on.

"Er." Russel looked just as taken aback. "Who the hell are—"

Nora grabbed his hands and shoved the food in them into his face. She missed his mouth and mostly just got grease on his cheek. "Hey!"

"I didn't want you to lick me," she explained, giving Yang a few thumps on the back as she hacked and coughed.

The man was staring at them like they'd just murdered his dog. Dove made a small noise in the back of his throat, then said, "Hello, sir."

Yang finally managed to get some of her breath back. Mid-splutter, she noticed that he looked _really familiar._ His mouth, his hair, his _eyes..._

"I'm so sorry!" she blurted out, backing up a half-step. "I didn't mean to almost bump into you." Then, she finally looked behind him. Team ABSW was all there, looking various shades of miserable, and Weiss was staring at them in open horror. _Yep, that's her dad._

"Do you know these... _people?"_ he asked, recoiling.

"They're our classmates," Weiss said. She'd gone beet-red.

"Hi!" Yang stuck out a hand to shake, then withdrew it quickly when she remembered the greasy cart-food. "Um, nice to meet you!"

"Your daughter's really awesome in sparring," Nora added.

"That is a... _bold_ choice in facial hair," Russel told him. "And this is coming from a guy who once tried a soul patch." In the background, Weiss buried her face in her hands. Blake gave her shoulder a consoling pat.

The man's nostrils flared, and one of his eyebrows twitched a few times. Then he turned on his heel and walked away without another word. ABSW hurried to catch up, though Jaune turned midstride to mouth the word, 'Sorry!'

"He was kinda rude." Nora frowned after the retreating figure.

"Oh my god," Dove said, staring blankly into space. "Russel."

"What?"

"You just insulted Jacques Schnee's mustache."

"Well, someone had to. He looks like a starved walrus!"

"Ugh." Dove sagged until his head was nearly upside-down. "Remind me to never let you meet anyone even remotely connected to high society, ever again."

"Remind me not to let _them_ meet _me._ Seriously, you'd think Yang had spat on him."

Nora perked up. "Yeah!"

"I don't really mind," Yang said, taking another bite of the cart-thing. It didn't taste quite as good, now. "I mean, I did come like this close to ruining his suit." She held her forefinger and thumb an inch apart. Another strand of cheese bridged the gap, sagging in the middle.

"Doesn't matter!" Nora insisted. "It was an accident and he was a jerk."

Dove rolled his eyes. "I don't think you understand how something like that would be interpreted in... a more polite setting."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He hesitated. "In some circles, like the ones I grew up in, manners are like a language of their own. There's a standard template for acceptable behavior, and every time you deviate from it, that makes a statement. Throwing the whole thing the window by eating finger food and almost getting what I can only assume is motor oil on someone's clothes? That message isn't just saying you don't respect him, it's saying that you think he's lower than dirt and slimier than Grimm guts."

Nora stared at him for a moment, then shuddered. "How did you even _survive?"_

He drew himself up and sniffed. "I'm not a barbarian, thank you very much."

Russel snorted and started giggling. "Yeah, sure, Mr. High-and-mighty. Are we all just gonna forget that _you_ tried the cart food too, and you had to spit it into your hand and started trying to wash your mouth out at the nearest water fountain?"

Dove blushed. "I wouldn't do that in front of a _Schnee,"_ he grumbled.

Yang sighed and took another bite of cart food. "I guess I never had to worry about that stuff. I grew up in Patch, and... I mean, everyone's polite, but it's about being kind to each other and not sweating the small stuff. If you want to say something, you just _say_ it."

"Ren's seen me do worse than eat gross food," Nora agreed, "And it's not like we ever needed to be guarded around each other."

"My mom tried to make me polite." Russel shrugged. "It didn't work. Though in my defense it's not like you grow up in the rough part of Vale making sure you don't use the wrong fork or whatever."

Rolling his eyes, Dove started walking back towards Beacon. "It's not taught in some places, that's true. But you should at least be aware of it."

"Why?" Nora asked, looking honestly baffled. "It's dumb."

Yang chuckled. "Yeah, it kind of is."

He gave them a _look._ "It's called being cultured."

Nora bopped him on the nose. "See? I couldn't do that if I was _cultured."_

"It would be rude, yes."

"But it shows I like you!"

He stared at her. "Oh."

"You didn't know that?" Yang asked, grinning. "It means you're part of the club!"

"I'm... strangely flattered."

"You better be!" Nora laughed and slung an arm over his shoulder. "We're an exclusive club. Full of mystery."

"Like what unholy hellfire is in that... cart-food?"

"Exactly!"


	32. Tensile Testing [5]

Sometimes it was hard being on a team with Yang and Nora. They were constantly causing chaos—maybe on purpose, maybe because just having them around made life take bizarre turns. Usually that chaos led to things like crashing an airship into Port's classroom. Something was always catching fire, action was always happening too fast to follow, and every once and a while everything would go completely and _utterly_ off the rails. If Russel wasn't careful, he was going to start feeling _normal_ by comparison.

That was why he was hiding in a bush, crouching and ready to pounce. Or, well, it was why he was going to say he did it, if Dove ever found out. He probably could have done a lot of other things to assert his weirdness. Those things probably would have been less sketchy. He really hoped he didn't accidentally leap out at the wrong person— _especially_ not, say, one of the scary members of ABSW.

Finally, he heard footsteps. He tried to peer out through the leaves, but he'd deliberately picked a spot behind a low wall and now he couldn't see anything. There was a little bit of clanking going on, though, so he figured whoever-it-was wore armor. That ruled out everyone he was worried about. He waited until they were right next to his bush and exploded out onto Beacon's main walkway, vaulting over the half-wall. Sky shrieked, flailed, then tripped over himself and landed on his butt.

"Hey there!" Russel said, putting his hands on his hips. "Let me tell you, I am _really_ glad I got you on the first try."

Sky gaped up at him.

"Although, worst case scenario I accidentally did that to Cardin and he tried to murder me, and... _meh."_

His mouth opened and closed like a fish. Then he shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. "Uh... why?"

"Well, he packs plenty of punch but I'm pretty good at dealing with big-and-slow, and he's slow in more than one way if you catch my drift—"

Sky groaned. "No, why did you jump out at me?"

Russel blinked at him as if utterly baffled by the question. "Well," he said, after a moment. "I just sort of assumed this was our thing."

More open-mouthed staring. "Our... _thing."_

"You know. Stalking? Behind the bookshelves?"

Sky put a palm to his face. "Really? How long were you in there?"

"Like thirty minutes. I didn't think it through, and then I'd sunk too much time into it to stop." Dove would have applauded him for sitting still that long.

"You could have done that at Weiss without realizing."

"Acceptable risk," Russel scoffed, waving a hand. "You've got to be willing to die for what you believe in."

Sky rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Did... did you have something you wanted to say, or did you just pick me because you knew I wasn't going to fight you over it?"

"Yes!" Russel winked. "But in all seriousness, I wanted to work on our semblances."

"Oh." Sky blinked. _"Oh._ That's actually a pretty good idea."

"I'm allowed to have them sometimes," he said defensively.

"...Like wasting thirty minutes squatting in a bush and jumping out at someone who may or may not have then skewered you with a rapier?"

"Hey, I stand by that plan."

Sky chuckled a little. "Yeah, okay. Sure."

Russel flopped to the ground, then braced his elbow on his knee so that he could crack his back. When he was finished, he stood up again and pushed his neck from side to side. He was pretty sure this was why Dove was always so grumpy—sitting still was _murder_ on the spine. Nora had probably never needed to do that in her life.

He was about to attempt to pop his shoulders when he heard a low humming noise that reminded him a bit of the giant dragonfly Grimm from the Emerald Forest. Craning his neck upwards, he felt his mouth fall open and hang there, just like Sky's had. There were airships on the horizon. _Military_ airships, and he was guessing Atlas because... well, who the hell else even _had_ that many? There had to be hundreds, and the one in the lead was so massive that it nearly blotted out the sun even from miles away.

"Woah," he breathed.

Sky was looking a bit pale. "They're not supposed to be here this soon."

Russel nodded dumbly. Then, a moment later, "So. Are we supposed to meditate, or what?"

"Huh?"

"To learn to eat lightning or turn into a petal tornado or whatever. Do we meditate?"

"That might be an invasion," Sky said, gesturing frantically at the fleet. "I really hope it isn't, maybe Atlas is just being weirdly early to the festival, but it could _totally_ be an invasion."

Russel shrugged. "It's not gonna get here for another twenty minutes, and I think someone would have shot at them by now if they were invading."

Sky squinted up at the ships. "That's _not_ reassur—oh!" He sagged a little in relief. "See that thing?" He pointed. "It's a medical convoy. No one in their right mind is going to put one of those near the front of the formation if it's an invasion. It'd stay out of range of Vale until there was somewhere for it to land. The way it's set up now, they're keeping it safe from the Grimm but not bothering to defend against the people on the ground."

"Okay," Russel said, nodding even though he still wasn't entirely sure which ship Sky was pointing at. "That too."

He frowned. "I still want to stay close to the airfield," he decided. "I want to know what's going on."

Russel raised his eyebrows. "Damn, we're good. A few months with us and your instinct is to run _toward_ the danger."

Sky flushed. "It's not dangerous if they're not an invasion, and they're definitely not an invasion."

"Eh, still."

Russel's plan ended up getting derailed by the sudden probably-not-an-invasion of Atlesian airships. He'd thought about going around interrogating their classmates about how they'd unlocked _their_ semblances, but now everyone who wasn't in class only wanted to talk about one thing—the fleet. Common consensus seemed to be that they were here because of the White Fang hijacking a few days ago, which made sense. It was one of those, 'if you want it done right' kinds of things.

Without the possibility of asking for help, the two of them decided to do what came natural. Or, in Russel's case, what most definitely did _not_ come natural but was the only thing he could actually think of. They found a quiet part of the courtyard and sat down across from one another. Russel folded his legs pretzel style, while Sky did something that looked a lot more painful and left both of his ankles resting on his thighs.

"Where'd you learn that?" he asked.

Sky just shrugged. "It's how Ren sits." He closed his eyes and started taking deep breaths through his nose. Russel copied him.

For a while he just sat there, trying not to think about how itchy his nose was or the fact that the patch of ground he was sitting on wasn't as dry as he'd initially thought and now his butt was feeling clammy. His head bobbed forward once or twice as he nodded off. Then he straightened his back and that stopped happening, but the itchiness got worse and he kept opening one eye or the other to sneak glances at Sky. Maybe they were both doing it and missing each other, so they each thought the other was doing it right and so they weren't saying anything and if this went on they'd just be _stuck_ like this—"

"I don't think it's working," Sky said, sounding disappointed.

"Oh, thank the _gods."_ Russel cracked his back again. "I've got way too much Brine in me for this."

They walked back towards the airfield feeling dejected. Sky kept kicking pebbles. Russel joined in and they competed to see who could send them the furthest, until they almost accidentally hit a third year girl and got fixed with a glare that left them unable to move for a solid ten seconds. Whether that was her semblance or sheer intimidation, they never got up the nerve to ask.

The first of the Atlesian airships had already landed by the time they reached the courtyard. They were coming in waves, dipping down and out of sight behind Beacon's roof and then rising again once they'd dropped off their passengers. They were of all shapes and sizes, from the massive one that wasn't going to be landing anywhere near the school without flattening it, to a tiny one hung with ribbons, to an elongated spire that was designed for ramming into Grimm—or maybe that was just something he'd heard Nora say would be cool.

Then, about halfway across the lawn, Sky stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. Russel followed his gaze and nearly jumped out of his skin when a man and a woman stalked through an archway, down the path, and into the school. He was tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and a long white jacket. She too was dressed all in white, with white hair up in a bun and, from what he could see from her posture, an everlasting hatred for all things fun and relaxing. "Wow," he breathed. "The snow-people are multiplying."

Sky rubbed his forehead. "They seem intense."

"Dude." Russel gave him a _look._ "There's no way she's not Weiss' mom or aunt or something."

"Sister," he said absently. "There are three siblings—one joined the military, one came here, and one stayed home."

"And you know that... how?"

"I've been researching the White Fang," Sky explained, looking a little abashed. "Their family came up a lot."

"Either way. I met her dad and I'm starting to think stick-up-the-ass is genetic."

Sky made a face. "Let's not talk about people who could disembowel us like that."

"Hey, maybe I wouldn't _win_ a fight with Weiss, but it's not like she'd walk all over me."

"I wasn't talking about her."

Russel glanced in the direction the older one had gone. "Meh. She's a military type, right? Not a Huntress."

"Same thing, in Atlas."

"Still, I'm hurt you're counting me out that fast. We've never even seen her fight."

Sky's brow furrowed. "Yeah. I guess."

They finally reached the docking area. It turned out that most of the airships weren't actually landing there—most were dropping people off in Vale, which Russel supposed made sense. There were still some droids hanging around the airfield, as well as a few real soldiers. Russel looked around, then spotted and approached Velvet—the only student outside their three-team group whose name he remembered. "Hey. What's going on?"

She turned, looking a little surprised to see him. "Oh. Hello, Russel. I'm not sure, but from what I've heard General Ironwood is taking over security for the Vytal Festival."

Russel stared at her. "Wait, what?"

"I guess they didn't take the hijacking well," Sky said, grimacing.

"No one did." Velvet was frowning over at the soldiers. "They've been giving me funny looks."

Russel chuckled. "Yeah, well. People are idiots. Well, most people. The ones giving _me_ funny looks might have a point. Higher than normal rate of explosions, right here!" He held up a hand. She gave him a bemused look and then slapped it.

Now the soldiers were giving him the evil eye, too. He shot a little wave in their direction and winked—because _fuck_ them.

* * *

Ruby hadn't even met him yet, but she already wasn't a fan of Mr. Schnee. Mostly this was because he'd hauled Jaune and his team out into Vale with no notice. Right when they were supposed to be _training._ So she and Pyrrha _both_ taught Sky, and now that the session was over he was looking kind of... um...

"Why," he wheezed, flopping over so that he was lying on his back and panting.

Pyrrha reached down and gave him a hand up. He tensed, staring at her wide-eyed. "That was insane," he told her, as he stumbled along with them back to the dorm. "I've never actually fought you before. Well, I still haven't, you were definitely holding back, but... wow."

Flushing bright red, Pyrrha managed to say, "You did quite well yourself." Ruby frowned in her direction. That looked less like an, 'aw shucks' blush and more like a, 'please stop talking' blush. She'd know—she was a champion at both and her sister was totally embarrassing about congratulations.

When the three of them got back, Ren was gone—so was BRYN, so it was a safe bet that they were off somewhere together. It was just her and Pyrrha and Sky, and after a few minutes he ducked into the bathroom for a shower.

"Hey," Ruby said, once they were alone.

Pyrrha looked up. "Hello," she replied automatically.

"Um... are you okay?"

She nodded just a little too quickly.

"Are you sure? If it's about the sparring thing, I know you're busy and it's totally fine if you don't want to."

"It's not that."

Ruby grinned. "Aha! So there _is_ something!"

It took a moment for Pyrrha to respond. "It's just that... I'm not a teacher."

"What? You're a great teacher!"

She winced. "I mean, I'm still only another student."

"Well, yeah," Ruby said, brow furrowing, "but you have way more experience than me with sparring. I know how to kill Grimm, but knocking out other people is different. So I figured I'd ask about that, and you know a _crazy_ amount about tournament strategy and it's making me really excited for the festival!"

Pyrrha looked down. "Perhaps, but it's... I don't want..." she trailed off, looking frustrated. _Don't want what? To be a teacher? To be_ treated _like a teacher?_

 _"Oh."_ Ruby's eyes went wide. "You want normal knees!"

"What?"

"...You didn't hear that." She tried not think about Yang trying to smother her on the airship to Beacon. "So... were you saying that you don't want people to treat you weird because of all the tournament stuff?"

Pyrrha blinked. "Yes, that's it exactly. How did you...?"

"I got moved up early," Ruby said, shrugging. "I was kinda worried people would be weird about that, too."

Her partner smiled. "Thank you."

Ruby had a sudden flash of inspiration. "Hey! We could go out in Vale if you want. To do normal stuff."

"That sounds wonderful!"

"Uh..." Ruby said, suddenly realizing that normal knees was a bit of a relative term in Beacon. It wasn't like she was an expert on 'things normal people do to have fun'—she and Yang used to go out into the woods together and bet on how many Beowolves they could kill.

Well. When all else fails, "Ice cream?"

* * *

It was day two of Weiss' dad being in Vale, and Jaune was going to _die._ Sure, the guy had been mostly ignoring him in favor of Weiss and sometimes Blake, and Cardin seemed happy to be the lightning rod that drew all his hatred away from them, but... still. He'd had a nightmare last night about walking into Port's class and seeing _him_ instead of their professor—after also forgetting his pants in the dorm, because his brain hated him.

He was kind of like what Jaune thought you'd get if you took all the things about Weiss that had terrified him when they'd first met—the piercing glare, the attitude, the strut—and condensed them into another person while leaving behind all the good qualities that had made him like her in the first place. Also— _emphasis on the piercing glare._ Every time Mr. Schnee. looked at him he had to fight the instinct to curl up around his stomach so that the guy wouldn't somehow see the fake transcript lie that had burrowed in there to build a guilt nest. Maybe Blake felt the same way about her ears.

Okay, no, she _definitely_ felt something like that, because he'd never seen her as uncomfortable as she'd been the past day and a half. The same went for Weiss, really. At least Mr. Schnee was staying in Vale, so they'd been able to sleep while he was a few nice, safe miles away. Then he'd returned, because some jerk had decided to delay his appointment with no sympathy at all to the poor teenagers that now had to occupy his attention.

The day before, when he'd finally gotten tired of being toured around Beacon and headed for the airfield, he'd suggested meeting for lunch the next day at some restaurant in Vale. Jaune had wanted very much to say no, but Weiss had made a motion with her head as if to say _this is not optional,_ and he'd agreed. At least, he'd thought, there would be food this time. Less stress.

Then he'd looked up the restaurant and panicked. It was the kind of place that had crystal chandeliers and wine glasses that would ring if you ran a finger around the rim. Most people placed reservations three months in advance. The menu he found on the network included a bottle of wine with actual gold flakes in it. _Just... why?!_

Cardin had shrugged and pulled a suit out of the closet they shared like it was no big deal. Weiss, too, already had formal clothing. Jaune had figured that at least Blake would also be part of the last-minute clothing freak-out, but she'd just shook her head distractedly and said she'd figure something out with what she had. Weiss had gotten a pained look on her face, but didn't bother to argue. That was really weird, and normally he might've asked about it, but he had a one-man last-minute clothing freak-out to attend to.

In the end, he'd had to borrow white slacks from Ren that came down to about an inch above his ankles, a black tie and dress shoes that pinched from Dove, and a blue collared button-down from Sky that was too small at the shoulders and chest. Apparently—according to a highly amused Yang—shirts that fit were better but it would look less stupid if it was a little tight than if it ballooned around him like something of Dove's might. He'd pointed out that he and Russel were about the same size, but she'd just laughed at that. The most formal thing _he_ owned was his torn-up vest.

After all that, they had to hike into Vale once classes were over and he really just wanted to go to bed. Blake ended up wearing her combat outfit with a black jacket, which he really wished he could've gotten away with.

"We have a plus one," Mr. Schnee said, when they finally met him outside the restaurant. Weiss' brow furrowed.

"What? Who—"

She cut off midsentence, and then broke out in a huge grin that made Jaune do a double-take. He turned to look where she was looking and froze.

There was a woman walking towards them. She had the same cutting stare and stiff posture Jaune was starting to think were genetic, but she was taller than Weiss and obviously older. She would probably have been imposing enough on her own, but she was dressed in a military uniform that was all sharp creases and crisp white. He tried not to gape.

"Winter!" Weiss was actually bouncing a little on her heels. Jaune exchanged an incredulous look with Blake. Her expression was odd—partly amused, but there was something soft about it, too.

Then Winter reached them. Jaune had decided yesterday that the next time he met a family member of Weiss'—and there was no way on Remnant that these two _weren't_ related—he was going to make a decent first impression instead of cowering. But cower he did, because she was giving him a look that said she _definitely_ noticed the ill-fitting everything he was wearing and was not amused. Blake got the same, Cardin a slightly less irritated glare, and Weiss... blankness.

"Hello, sister."

Weiss looked like she was trying to fight down the grin. "I didn't know you'd be here," she said. Beside her, Blake started eying Winter in a way that wasn't very friendly.

"I arrived with General Ironwood just this afternoon," she replied. Still crisp, not cracking a smile. "I would have preferred more warning," she added, shooting an irritated glance at her father. "It's been a long flight and I have work to do."

Jaune had literally never seen Weiss wearing the kind of wide, unguarded smile that she had when Winter had first shown up. That made it infinitely worse to watch the expression slowly shriveling away. He folded his arms and glared at the newcomer.

"What do you do, anyway?" Cardin asked.

Winter arched an eyebrow. It was such a very _Weiss_ expression that Jaune half-expected her to roll her eyes and call him some three-syllable word for moron. Instead she answered, "I'm a specialist in the Atlesian military."

"I know." Cardin smirked at her. "I meant what do you actually _do."_

Weiss stamped on his foot. "I think what he _means_ is that it's cold out here." She turned to her father and forced a smile. "I assume you have a reservation?"

Jaune glanced at Blake. She looked, if anything, even _more_ uncomfortable than he felt. He mustered up a weak grin, a sort of _well this is horribly awkward_ smile that he would normally be sharing with Ruby. She didn't grin back, but she at least seemed to be less scowl-y when they walked into the restaurant.

The second they crossed the threshold, everyone stared at them. Not, 'He was feeling a bit awkward, so it _seemed_ like everyone was staring.' No. Heads turned all around the room. Thankfully most of them were focusing on the scary man with the mustache that was leading the group, but a lot of eyes fell on Weiss and Winter as well. Others shot scandalized looks at Jaune and Blake.

Her shoulders had gone rigid. The bow twitched again, then stilled. She was radiating discomfort, but he wasn't sure what to do about it. Then Weiss reached out and gave her sleeve a little tug. Blake looked in her direction, then seemed to relax. She met Jaune's eyes and gave him a look, like, _'What are we even doing here?'_

He shrugged. She smirked and turned back around. Jaune decided that maybe, this wouldn't be so bad.

A man that was much better-dressed than Jaune, in a black suit and bowtie, greeted Mr. Schnee. "Right this way, sir," he said, bowing at the waist and then turning smoothly to lead them further into the restaurant. He gave Jaune and Blake a disgruntled look as they started to follow, as if he couldn't believe _they_ were part of this group, too.

They were seated near the back, in a semi-private area that was curtained off from the rest of the restaurant. There were fancy chairs that were hard to sit in because the backs were all complicated iron lattices, a fancy chandelier overhead that made his eyes hurt when he looked directly at it, and fancy silverware he had literally no idea how to use. He ended up next to Cardin, with Winter at one head of the table and Mr. Schnee at the other. Weiss had opted to sit closer to her father than her sister, which was probably more to avoid Blake being the one next to him than personal preference.

He stared at the menu for a long time before eventually realizing he had no hope of figuring out what any of it was and ordering the least expensive entrée. It was still pricey enough to make his eyes water, but Weiss had promised beforehand to pay for all four of them. Cardin had snorted and said he neither wanted nor needed a handout. Jaune wondered if he was regretting that now.

Once they had ordered and the waiter had left, Mr. Schnee gave Weiss and Blake a critical once-over. "You didn't sleep well."

Weiss winced. "No. We were studying."

That was a blatant lie. Whatever was up with her and Blake was obviously still going on, because when he'd gotten up to go to the bathroom at around three in the morning yester—er, today?—they'd both been in there surrounded by books. Any day now, they were going to buy a cork board and start covering it in red string.

Winter frowned at that. "I do hope you aren't leaving assignments to the last minute."

Weiss looked down. Jaune was getting really sick of this. "They're also working on an important project," he added. "It's an extra-credit thing." Blake flashed him a grateful smile.

If nothing else, it got Winter to look at him instead. "And you're abstaining? That's hardly appropriate for a team leader."

Jaune cringed. She was way more direct than her dad about the insults. "Yeah, um." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I just... uh..."

"He's working with another student," Weiss said. "Outside the team." She glanced at Blake and smiled a little wryly. "We're doing extra research on Mountain Glenn, and it's a topic that's... a little denser than the project was intended to be."

Mr. Schnee gave her a look that Jaune couldn't interpret at _all._ "You've certainly made an interesting choice. One might think that with so much of that history being _restricted,_ you'd elect to focus on something... closer at hand." Jaune looked from him, to Weiss—was she _blushing?_ —to Blake, who seemed just as confused as he was.

Winter frowned. "That is odd. Do you have a particular interest in the topic?"

"Um." Flustered, Weiss took a sip of her water. "It's..." She faltered, shooting a frantic look at Blake.

"Cool!" Jaune blurted out. Everyone stared at him. "I mean, that's why, uh... Sky and me are learning about, um, the Great War?" He shrank into himself a little.

 _"Are_ you." Winter had gone from confused to suspicious. "I'm sure it's been _informative._ Tell me, exactly how stupid do you think—"

"Winter." She stopped talking. Mr. Schnee smiled. "I'm sure Weiss chose her project more carefully than this boy is implying." Winter stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "As a matter of fact," he went on, "I've been doing a little research of my own, recently."

Weiss and Blake both went rigid in their seats. Mr. Schnee went on smiling, as if he hadn't noticed. Winter definitely had, and she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at their father. "The history of Vale's Dust industry is particularly fascinating," he went on, after a brief pause. "Your grandfather led quite a few expeditions into the area that later became Mountain Glenn. He didn't have much to do with the colony itself, of course."

Blake relaxed a bit at that. Weiss didn't. "Are you sure you have the full story?" she asked. "I'd never heard he went to Mountain Glenn."

"Really?" Mr. Schnee raised his eyebrows. "You didn't know?"

Weiss scowled.

"Ah." He looked annoyed, now. "Well. I would question whether you're making the right _choice,_ looking into Mountain Glenn rather than something a little more... relevant to you."

"That's _none_ of your business."

Winter looked from one to the other, frowning like she wanted to decipher a letter written in a language she didn't know. Blake was mostly staring at Weiss, trying to read her expression. Jaune just sighed. He could already feel the headache forming.

Thankfully, the waiter chose that time to walk in with their food, breaking the tense silence that had been forming. Then Jaune's plate was set in front of him and he realized that he had absolutely no idea what was on it. There was... some kind of meat? Maybe beef? And a lot of brown, round things in a pile, and some greenish leaves that might have been vegetables or maybe garnish. He looked at the forks. There were three of them.

He tried to catch Blake's eye, to share another moment of helpless confusion, but she'd already picked one up and started eating. It was the little one furthest to the left. Jaune copied her. Mr. Schnee gave him a _look,_ and he tried not to flush too obviously. When he bit into his food, he discovered that it was pork. He wasn't normally a huge fan, but the sauce was good enough that it almost didn't matter.

At least things were quiet while they ate. Kind of stiflingly quiet, but no one was lying or calling each other out on said lies, so it was an improvement. Then, Mr. Schnee spoke up again.

"I can't help but be concerned," he said, as he cut into what looked like a bit of salmon. "The White Fang has been unusually active in Vale, and you and I both know that you're a target."

Winter scowled at him. "How long have you been waiting to bring that up, exactly?"

He spread his hands and said, "I think it's a valid concern, considering Weiss has already encountered them once."

Jaune did a double-take. "Huh?" _Wasn't that Torchwick?_

 _"What?"_ Winter dropped her fork. "You never told me!"

Weiss winced. "It was an accident, really. We were out in Vale and heard an explosion."

"So naturally you ran towards it," Winter said, sounding frustrated.

"I'm fine," Weiss insisted. "I wasn't hurt."

"And the scar on your leg?"

She ducked her head. "That... was from a mission hunting Grimm."

"It's hardly an argument that Vale is _safe,_ if you've managed two potentially deadly encounters in one year," Mr. Schnee observed. "Particularly with those _thugs_ so active in recent months."

"Yeah, there's a lot of them around," Cardin said, leaning back and smirking. "Lots of protests and crap."

"The White Fang doesn't organize protests anymore," Blake snapped. "Those groups are completely different." Mr. Schnee's expression shifted—a flash of anger, maybe?

Sensing disaster, Jaune blurted out, "Hey! Uh, how do I get a refill on my water?"

"Your glass is still half-full," Winter pointed out.

"Eh, I've been told I'm a glass-half-empty kind of guy, so..." Everyone stared at him, even Cardin. He managed a weak grin.

After that, conversation topics got less tense. Mostly. Jacques wondered pointedly about their team average, which made Jaune flush and Cardin try to glare holes in the table. Other than that, he thought it was about as civil as anyone could have hoped for.

Finally, after what felt like hours, they left the restaurant and were back out in Vale proper, where Jaune wasn't as much of a crime against fashion. The six of them gathered in a clump outside the doors.

"Well," he said, feeling a little awkward with no one talking. "That was good."

"Their lamb was overcooked," Mr. Schnee replied, frowning. "I'm afraid I must be going. My driver is here." He inclined his head to Weiss and Winter, then walked away. It felt like there was more oxygen in the air, once he wasn't present.

Winter glared after him until he was out of sight, then turned to Weiss. "What was he talking about? Research? _Choices?"_

"I don't know what you mean," Weiss said. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and she still looked anxious.

For the first time since she had arrived, Winter's expression softened. "Weiss—"

"We should probably head back to Beacon soon." Weiss still wasn't looking at anyone. "Curfew is in half an hour, and..."

"We need to work on that project," Blake added. Jaune watched in fascination as Weiss cringed like someone had just dropped an ice cube down her back.

"It was wonderful to see you, Winter," she said hurriedly, and fled towards the airship platform with Blake in tow.

"Okay," Jaune said, staring after them. "That was weird."

"Extremely," Winter agreed.

"We should probably..." he trailed off, indicating the direction they'd gone.

"No."

Jaune stopped dead. "Uh...?"

"I'd like a word." He swallowed, suddenly very aware of the fact that Winter was a specialist in the Atlesian army. Sure, she wasn't armed, but neither was he.

Cardin folded his arms and asked, "What? It's not like we have to—" Winter glared at him, and he shut his mouth with a small, wet _pop._ Jaune wanted that as a superpower so, _so_ badly.

"So." She looked them over critically. _"You_ are the people my sister is planning on risking her life with."

"Uh..." Jaune rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yes?"

Winter gave them the kind of look he figured she'd give a dead rodent in an air duct. Then she sighed. "Something is wrong."

He groped for an excuse, but she just held up her hand. "No. Don't bother, you're a terrible liar. I know there's no extra credit assignment, though I have no idea why my father pretended to buy that _ridiculous_ nonsense."

Jaune winced. "Uh... okay, yeah."

"Well?" She took a step towards him. "What do you know?"

His eyes went wide. "Look, it's not really any of my business to—"

"If you're going to pretend to be any sort of _leader,"_ she said, sneering, "then it most certainly _is_ your business. Tell me."

"I don't know," he insisted. "I mean, they're tired but they aren't hurt or anything."

She scoffed, then pulled a card from inside her jacket. "The ID for my work scroll is on there. If something happens that might endanger Weiss, call me."

He blinked. "Oh. Um..."

"Take it. Put it in your pocket. Type it into your scroll—"

"I know how to do that," he said, a little indignant.

"Miracle of miracles."

He narrowed his eyes. "Hey! Maybe I'm not exactly intimidating or anything, but I'm not stupid. I can tell how happy Weiss was to see you."

She seemed a little taken aback by that.

"And I can _also_ tell that you blew her off. So, you know." He held up the card. "I'll keep it, sure, but she's got friends at Beacon I'll call first."

Winter's expression turned murderous. He shoved his hands into his pockets so that they wouldn't start shaking. "Go back to Beacon," she snapped. "And _don't_ talk about things you don't understand."

And with that, she turned on her heel and stalked away. Cardin stared after her, smirking. "What do you want to bet Princess followed her around when they were kids? One of those annoying clingy toddlers."

Jaune rubbed his forehead. "Please stop talking."


	33. Tensile Testing [6]

"A little more to the left..."

Pyrrha adjusted, frowning as she tried to get a better angle.

"Okay, now go further in."

She moved slowly. Carefully.

"Oh gods, _yes!_ Right there!"

Concentration broken, she turned and shot a resentful look at Russel, face flaming.

"Sorry," he said, grinning. "Couldn't resist."

Pyrrha sighed and pulled out the lockpick with her semblance, letting it rest on her palm with the little metal L Russel had called the tension wrench. In her other hand lay a small padlock that he'd been teaching her to open. He wasn't very good at it. Teaching, that was—he could crack the lock in under a minute, but she'd been at this nearly an hour with no progress.

"Okay," he said, rubbing a hand through his hair. "Maybe try it without the pick? You can just grab the metal stuff inside the lock, right? Try and feel around."

She set down the metal tools and focused all her attention on the lock. It began to glow black as she reached for it with her semblance. She imagined she were pouring aura into it, filling it up. It was hard to tell what exactly she was 'looking' at, but she thought she could feel separate, smaller pieces. She told Russel so.

"Good. Those are probably the tumblers."

"There seem to be... more of them than expected. You said there would be three."

He nodded. "Yeah, but each one has two halves. Can you tell where the pieces meet?"

She nodded slowly. "I think so."

"Cool. So you just do the same thing you were trying to do with the lockpicks, and move those pins until the spots where the pieces meet are all lined up with the edge of the cylinder. Then you just turn it."

Pyrrha gave one of the pins a little push. It slid upwards, hard, a metal spring above it contracting and then bouncing back the second she let go. Russel twitched. "Wow, I actually _heard_ that. Ease up a little."

She nodded and gave an even smaller tug. It was normal for her to use her semblance to make small changes, but those small changes were usually affecting heavy objects like a sword or poleax, not tiny pins less than an inch long.

Humming thoughtfully, Pyrrha took hold of the lockpick and tension wrench, still saturated with her aura, and pushed them to Russel. "Uh, what?"

"It might help if you open it while I can tell what you're doing."

"Oh!" He grinned and started fiddling with the lock. She tried her best to pay attention to what was going where, letting her eyes slip shut. It was nothing like _seeing,_ really. The closes sense would have to be touch—she could feel where the lockpick was pushing against one of the pins, could sense where the little pieces were in relation to one another. He went through them slowly, methodically, twisting the lock as he did so. She sensed the pins he'd already moved and separated being stuck that way as he applied torque—they couldn't fall back down now that the lock had moved just a fraction of a fraction of an inch. He went out of order, too, focusing on which pin was loosest.

When he was about to open the lock, Pyrrha held it shut on a whim.

"That... really should have worked," he said, frowning. "The hell? Did I drop one of the..." He noticed the look on her face and laughed. "Yeah, okay, stupid question."

"I think I know what you did."

"Cool."

Actually doing it turned out to be another matter entirely. She still overshot with the pins, it was hard to figure out which ones were the loosest, and holding multiple tiny pieces in place with her semblance all at once was tricky. She had her eyes shut, so the only warning she got when Russel tried to snatch the lock was the feeling of movement. Pyrrha held it still on instinct, not with her hands but with her semblance, and tugged it back to her palm. Then she opened her eyes and found Russel wincing and rubbing his hand.

"I'm sorry!"

He laughed. "What for? That was cool." Then he grinned. "But, uh... you've been at this for a while now, it's probably time for a break."

Pyrrha frowned. "I think I'm getting closer..."

"I didn't learn to do it in a day either," he pointed out. "And I can just give you the lock so you can practice whenever."

"Alright." She smiled at him. "Thank you."

"No problem." He flopped down crosslegged next to her. They were in the courtyard, enjoying the warm summer weather while it lasted. Nearby, Ruby and Sky were sparring. He was certainly improving—if nothing else, it was quite impressive watching him approach the whirling tornado of metal that was their team leader without fear. He'd then get knocked down, usually, but he was able to block more blows from her than most.

"To be honest?" Pyrrha turned to look at Russel when he spoke. He tipped his head back to stare up at the clouds. "Part of the reason I'm doing this is to take a break from looking for mine. Y'know. Remind myself how cool this stuff is and why I wanted to find it in the first place."

"I wish you luck."  
  


He grinned. "Yeah. I'm hoping I get something cool, like yours or Nora's."

Sky took a hit to the stomach and went down sprawling, but he rolled to his feet and charged back towards Ruby with a little war cry. He'd picked up a few unconscious habits from her—bouncing on the balls of his feet before a bout, or twirling his halberd around his waist to parry an attack. Pyrrha wondered how many little tics like that her combat instructor had passed down to her. Maybe none—she'd always been focused on the proper form, being textbook-perfect.

On a sudden whim, Pyrrha turned to Russel and asked, "Do you find me difficult to approach?"

He gave her blank look. "You're pretty intimidating, but I live with Nora, so..."

"Oh."

Russel laughed. "C'mon, that's not a _bad_ thing. It's a good flavor of intimidating, kind of like Yang or Nora. I know you could probably break me in half if you wanted to, but anyone who knows you can tell you'd need to be _super_ pissed off to hurt someone on purpose."

"That's... not exactly what I meant. Is... is it hard to talk to me?"

"Yeah, it's completely impossible. That's why I'm not doing it _right now."_ He rolled his eyes. "What are you actually trying to ask?"

Pyrrha smiled. The sarcastic non-answer was more informative than a real one might have been. "I suppose I've had some trouble before with people treating me like I'm this larger-than-life tournament fighter, and not a real person."

"Not the most relatable problem ever, but go on."

"Well, that was part of the reason I came here instead of Haven. I wanted to make new friends who might be less... cognizant of that side of me. It worked—Jaune didn't even know who I was, Ruby was a fan but only of my weapons, and Ren doesn't seem to care very much about fame."

"Ooh." Russel waggled a finger. "But you didn't mention Sky."

"That's who I'm more worried about. Sometimes he'll make jokes and act normal, but I just..." She hung her head. "I can't figure out how to fix it. It was always like that in Mistral, every time I tried to show people I was just _me,_ it made things worse."

"Probably because 'just you' has the patience and generosity of an actual saint," Russel said, "but that's not the point." He clapped his hands together and looked her dead in the eye. "Pyrrha. Literally just tell him."

"What?"

"Tell him you don't like the hero worship crap, that it's creepy or annoying or... whatever."

"But... I don't want to push him away."

"You are too polite," Russel decided. "I think when we're done with the lockpicking I'm gonna teach you how to tell people to screw off. If you need something badly enough that you're talking to some random dude from another team about it, _ask for it._ Geez."

"I did, though," she protested. "I've told him before that I enjoy when he doesn't take me so seriously."

Russel smacked a hand against his forehead. "People aren't psychic, Pyrrha. He could totally have read that as, 'make more jokes,' and not, 'treat me like a human being.'"

"Oh."

He shook his head, as if in disbelief that any of that actually had to be said. "I'm starting to think Dove had a point when he said we're secretly the sane ones."

* * *

Father knew.

That fact had been a major part of why Weiss hadn't slept well last night. She'd laid on her back staring at the ceiling, trying to work out another possible meaning, but nothing else made sense. He said he'd done research, and it certainly hadn't been into the exploits of his father-in-law. A classmate must have talked, he couldn't just _know_ like that, no matter how much he liked to pretend he could.

Now he'd called to tell ABSW that he wanted to chat in an upscale café while he _supposedly_ waited for a meeting with the chief of police. She didn't doubt that he was letting some of the bureaucrats stall him in order to spend more time with them. Either way, she'd have to tell her team.

"I don't know how much longer I can handle this," Jaune groaned, flopping face-first onto his bed after she delivered the news. "He's so..."

"I know," Weiss snapped. "But I can't _make_ him leave, so we're going to have to deal with it. Listen..."

Blake started pacing the length of the dorm. "I keep catching him looking at me like he _knows,"_ she said, running a hand through her hair. She'd been doing that a lot—it was starting to get tangled.

Weiss took a shaky breath, searching for words. She'd put this off too long.

"He does," she admitted. "Or, he hinted that he did." Blake went still.

"Oh."

"Yes, _oh."_

"Um." Jaune looked from one to the other in alarm. "What? How would he know?"

"I don't know!" she burst out. "For all I know some random student told him." Then she paused and glared at Cardin. He looked up and sneered.

All of a sudden, Blake made a dismayed noise and whirled around. "But... but he _also_ thinks—"

"Yes."

  
"Then... what's he going to _do?"_

"I have no idea." She'd tried to imagine it, which was part of the reason she'd slept so poorly last night. In the end, she came up completely blank. She knew he had... less than progressive views on faunus and disapproved of romance in general, but as for his reaction to _this?_ All she could picture was static. It could be anything from a few passive-aggressive remarks to pulling her out of Beacon.

"So... what are you talking about?" Jaune asked, scratching his head.

_"Nothing,"_ Weiss and Blake both insisted at the same time.

Then, Blake groaned again. "Oh, _gods,_ is that why he's been around so much?"

"Probably!" Weiss threw her hands up in frustration. "I don't know! He's letting people delay him when he doesn't have to, so I have to assume he's doing this to us on purpose."

"I still have no idea what you're talking about," Jaune grumbled, "And it's obviously not nothing. Is this why you haven't gotten any sleep for the past few days?"

"No," Weiss snapped.

"So that's a _different_ cryptic secret."

"There's only one secret," she said, sitting down on her bed and rubbing her forehead. "The other thing is just... it's something I let him assume so that he wouldn't butt in, which obviously _backfired."_

"Wait, huh? Do you mean you let him think Blake is human until yesterday?"

"No." She could feel her face heating up. Blake glanced in her direction, a silent question. Weiss nodded, then slumped where she sat.

"He thinks we're... together," Blake explained, her ears pinning themselves flat against her head. Cardin burst out laughing.

"Shut up," Weiss growled.

"Is that why you were so worried he'd see what's under the bow?" Cardin snorted. "I guess now he knows you're into—" Weiss lurched to her feet, hand moving towards Myrtenaster's case.

"Whoa!" Jaune stood up, putting his hands out. "Now is a really bad time for this, guys. We're supposed to meet Mr. Schnee in twenty minutes." He paused. "Oh my god, he thinks you're dating."  
  


"I just said that," Blake pointed out. She was avoiding making eye-contact with any of them.

"Why are we _all_ getting the third degree then?" he whined.

"Because I haven't _told_ him," Weiss said. "He thinks he figured it out, so up until now he's been trying to be discreet enough that you don't notice, but not so discreet that I can't tell he knows."

"That's insane."

She held her hands out. "Obviously!"

Her scroll buzzed. Puzzled, she pulled it out and then froze.

"What's wrong?" Blake asked, leaning over her shoulder to look.

"It's a news alert. There was a bombing downtown. White Fang."

"Not—"

"Not unprecedented. Everyone inside is accounted for. Nobody dead, a few injured."

"Oh." Jaune paled. "That's bad."

"No shit," Cardin snorted. "It's a jungle out there."

Weiss glared at him. Beside her, Blake was doing the same.

"Okay," Jaune said, clapping his hands together. "We should probably go before we get, uh, caught up."

He ushered Cardin out first—probably a smart move if he wanted to avoid a fight. Weiss hesitated when she reached the door. Father would have had the same alert, read the same story. He'd be in an even worse mood than she'd anticipated.

A warm weight rested on her shoulder. She turned to find Blake's hand. "Are you okay?"

Weiss nodded. "Fine." She took a deep breath. "I hope he doesn't make an issue of it. And that he leaves soon."

Blake let out a dark chuckle. "That's probably the only thing all four of us can agree on."

It turned out that she was right—Father was angrier than she'd seen him in a long time. She recognized the signs the moment they stepped into the café. His expression was neutral, his smile polite as always, but his posture was rigid and his jaw was set. When he looked at her, she could see a flash of annoyance.

"You're late," he said when they sat down. He'd told them to meet him there at four-thirty, after their last class of the day. It was about a minute past.

"Sorry, sir." Jaune seemed taken aback. "Class ran a little over."

"No matter. Sit." He'd taken the seat nearest the door. There was one beside him, two across from him, one on the long end of the table facing the window. Swallowing, Weiss took the closest spot and felt her stomach clench when she realized she was sitting directly to his right, where they would constantly bump elbows. She'd have to eat with her non-dominant hand.

Blake sat down next to her, and lightly bumped her shin with her ankle under the table. Jaune, who seemed to have noticed Father's bad mood—or her own nervousness—started fiddling with his napkin. Cardin just sat back and grinned.

They spent a long time engaged in tense small-talk. Weiss wasn't about to bring up the subject herself, not when she kept reading little gestures of irritation—a flick of his fingers as he spoke, the tightness in his smile, even the way he ate slowly and methodically without seeming to notice.

Then, finally, he sat back in his seat. "Well?" he prompted. "I believe we have something to discuss."

Blake leaned forward in her seat, gripping the edge of the table. "How did you find out?"

His jaw jumped. "You didn't even bother changing your name," he said coolly. "What did you expect?"

Weiss shot a confused glance at Blake. She'd been expecting him to say that one of their classmates had mentioned it, maybe even by accident. "What does her name have to do with anything?"

"You don't know, then. She's part of the White Fang." Jaune choked on his coffee and started hacking up a lung. Cardin just stared.

"Being a faunus doesn't make me one of them."

He ignored that, and instead focused on Weiss. She met his eyes with some difficulty. "Her parents are the founders," he said, as though he were discussing a run-of-the-mill stock report. "Specifically her father, Ghira Belladonna. I had thought the name was familiar, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't make the connection until I did background checks on the three of them."

"The three of us?" Cardin said, indignant.

Weiss ignored him. She ignored Father, too, which was generally unwise. Instead she just stared at Blake, trying to process the fact that _both_ her parents were alive and well, and they'd apparently founded the organization the two of them were now trying to bring down.

"They were never a part of _any_ of the violent actions of the White Fang." Blake got to her feet so forcefully that her chair skidded several inches away from her. "They advocated for peaceful solutions." A few other patrons turned to stare.

Father wasn't smiling anymore. He wasn't even _pretending_ to be unaffected. He rose, too—he was taller than Blake by a little over an inch. Weiss was reminded suddenly and powerfully of sitting at the dinner table when she was smaller, with him and Winter standing just like this, talking more and more heatedly until they were both shouting. "And you?" he asked.

"I left."

"Before _any_ criminal action was committed?" His expression said that he didn't believe that for an instant.

"Yes," Weiss lied, before Blake had a chance to answer. "I'd be willing to back that up." Blake shot her a bewildered look.

For the first time she could remember, Father looked taken aback. He stared at her for a moment. Then his eyebrows flicked up, his mouth set. "Ah."

She lifted her chin, a challenge. "What?"

"I'm sure you recall a nanny that doted on you when you were small." He was expressionless, now. Blank. "That is, until it became clear that you had no control over her salary. I'd thought you might take the lesson to heart."

"I don't want anything to do with blood money," Blake spat.

"Greed is far from the only deadly sin," he said. "I'd consider wrath a prime candidate, in your particular case. Among other things." Cardin snickered, and Jaune kicked him hard under the table.

"You can't seriously be suggesting she's planning to kill me." He wasn't stupid—surely he knew that there had been _plenty_ of better opportunities for that in the beginning of the year.

"Obviously not, if she hasn't already," he conceded. "I'm merely reminding you of who you are. The price of greatness, so to speak."

She remembered. _Affection is easy to fake. Everyone always has another motive._ He'd warned her about it more than once. Every single time, he turned out to be right. "This is different," she insisted.

He was silent for a moment, studying first her expression, then Blake's. There was a look in his eyes she'd never seen before—she couldn't identify it, and that made her nervous. Then he smiled. "You have your mother's gift for seeing the best in people."

Weiss gaped at him, too shocked to reply. Before she could recover, he had already turned to go. He stopped long enough to place enough lien on the table to pay for the meal and a sizeable tip. Then he was gone, and she was left standing there with a terrible sense of foreboding.

ABSW exited the café together. The minute they were out the door, Jaune put his hands on his knees and let his head fall forward. "Okay. That's fine. This is _fine."_

A hand closed around her wrist, and Weiss jerked away. "Sorry," Blake murmured. "But... do you want to go somewhere else?" Weiss hesitated. Then she tried to imagine going about her day at Beacon, as if nothing had happened. She nodded. They abandoned Jaune with Cardin—she decided she'd give him some of her notes later, because he was being a saint putting up with all of this—and fled deeper into Vale.

It was only after four or five blocks of walking that Weiss recovered the power of speech. Blake was staying close by, their shoulders almost touching, and seemed content to let the silence last as long as necessary. Or maybe she was just waiting for Weiss to say something, so that she'd know what tack to take in the rest of the conversation. A hint at how to seem more sympathetic.

"Well?" Weiss prompted, as they crossed the street. "When were you planning on telling me about your parents?"

Blake's ears pulled back against her skull. "We didn't part on the best of terms. They were peaceful rights activists, and when the White Fang started getting more aggressive, they left. I... didn't."

She was silent for a moment, her shoulders curved forward as if she was trying to make herself smaller. "It wasn't the same as it is now, even then. More aggressive methods meant things like... sitting in at cafés that wouldn't serve us. Never hurting anyone, just showing we had a right to be there. Then there were robberies, because it became increasingly clear that the only thing anyone was actually paying any attention to was lien. Things just kept escalating, so I got out."

Weiss mulled that over for a moment. If it was true, she could live with it. She nodded slowly.

Blake still seemed troubled. "I'm not even sure if that talk with your Father was a good outcome or not. He doesn't want you to leave, at least."

"Oh, he does. He didn't want me to go in the first place, but he obviously hasn't made up his mind about whether or not to bring me home." She bit her lip. "It doesn't make sense. This is the perfect excuse, I'd expect him to make a big deal of it even if he _didn't_ care, and he obviously does."

"Maybe not." Blake ran a hand through her hair, then tugged the bow off and tucked into her pocket. "It could be he's assuming you'll eventually hate me anyway, so he doesn't need to do anything. When someone is prejudiced, they expect people to act stereotypically because they don't _know_ it's a stereotype."

"No."

"No?"

"He's trying to do something, and if I don't figure out what I'll just... blunder right into it."

Blake hesitated. "Maybe..."

"What?"

"It could be there's less to it than you're thinking." She turned to stare into a shop as they passed it, looking uncomfortable.

"I'm not being paranoid," Weiss snapped.

"I never said that."

"It was implied."

Blake looked away again. "Sorry. You know him better than I do."

Weiss bit her lip. No argument?

"Obviously," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "It's hardly his style to let things go like that."

"Right."

"I'm honestly surprised you haven't noticed that by now."

Blake's brow furrowed. "I've been focusing on keeping secrets, maybe I wasn't paying enough attention."

_Come on, push back!_

"You can't just ignore what he isn't saying," she said, making her tone imperious. Cold. "This is important."

"I know."

Nothing. No reaction. Weiss swallowed hard, then tried one last time. "Do you? Really?"

"Yes!" Blake glared at her. "Of course I do." _  
_

"Okay." The knot in her stomach eased a little.

Blake tipped her head back and sighed. "I hate this."

"Join the club, membership: everyone who's ever met him."

She snorted, then burst into laughter. Weiss mustered a wry smile. Then they turned a corner, and she caught sight of someone reflected in one store window. He was tall, dark-skinned, with a pair of drooping dog's ears and huge round glasses. He was _staring._

Rattled, Weiss turned to look over her shoulder but couldn't find him again. She shook her head. He was a faunus, that didn't automatically make him a threat. _Stupid._

"It's not just the reading between the lines."

"What?"

Blake gripped one elbow, hugging her arm against herself. "I hate that he can do that. Threaten to take you back to Atlas."

"I'm not exactly fond of the idea, either."

"Would you let him?"

Weiss stared at her. "What part of him pulling me out of Beacon sounds like _let_ to you?"

"The part where you're stronger than him. You could just... not go."

She scoffed. "Physically stronger, maybe."

"Not just physically. You've changed, really changed, that's not an easy thing to—"

"Don't be dense on purpose. You've talked to him, you have at least some idea of what he's like."

"Yes! He's _horrible,_ and yet you seem to be bending over backwards to cater to him!"

"Shut up."

"What's the point of worrying about whether he wants you to leave or not? Ozpin would let you stay if he tried to take you, you could get a stipend for Dust—"

_"Shut up."_

Weiss squeezed her eyes shut and stopped walking. After a few shaky breaths, she continued. "You don't know what you're talking about. It's not that simple. I... can we just go somewhere else? I don't want to think about it."

Blake gave her an agonized look. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." The frustration was reassuring. There was no reason for Blake to fake it.  
  


Her partner took a step forward and held her arms out. Weiss stared at her. "Do you mind if I...?"

Slowly, warily, she nodded. Blake folded her into a hug.

"I worded that badly. What I meant was... if you wanted us to, we'd fight to let you stay. All of us. We could get Brine and Raspberry in on it, too. We want you to stay."

And there it was. No big, bad, ulterior motive—Blake seemed to enjoy her company. That was it. Weiss let her head rest on her partner's shoulder, felt a lock of hair brush against her forehead. The tension eased out of her slowly, leaving her feeling like someone had hollowed her out with a spoon. She blinked rapidly, suddenly hyper-aware of the hands on her back, the proximity, the breath on her neck. A now-familiar sensation of warmth in her stomach, like she'd swallowed hot soup, suddenly given new context.

"Except Cardin," she joked, pulling away as quickly as she could without seeming like she was trying to escape. The extra distance did very little to settle her thoughts.

Blake laughed. "Except Cardin, but that's just another point in your favor." She grinned, her eyes shining, her ears perked up high and turning almost purple in the late afternoon sunlight.

"I'm hungry," Weiss decided abruptly. "I didn't eat much of anything in the café."

"We could go somewhere," Blake suggested. Then she winced. "Somewhere... else."

"Right."

They resumed walking. Weiss let herself lag behind a few paces, then frantically clawed her scroll out of her pocket. Who was she even supposed to talk to? Jaune was an obvious no—she knew firsthand that he was terrible with this sort of thing. Dove? He probably wouldn't know. She might as well go straight to the source.

> >> I need to talk to you. Meet in the library at seven?

Nora replied almost immediately.

> >> uh K. y???

Weiss was _so_ going to regret this.

* * *

For once, Nora was actually _early_ getting to the library. It helped that she was so curious it hurt. So she got there before seven, sat down at a table, and bounced her knee while she waited. And waited.

Weiss got there exactly on time, looking out of breath like she'd had to run. Nora waved her over. Then, finally, she sat down. And said nothing.

"Okay." Nora nodded to herself. "This is... weird."

It was like she'd cut Weiss strings. She slumped down, letting her forehead hit the table, and muttered something too muffled to hear.

"Wow." Nora grinned. "I thought that was just a Dove thing."

"It's a _frustration_ thing," Weiss grumbled. Nora took a moment to really look her over. There were shadows under her eyes, tension in her shoulders, and she was weirdly _twitchy._  
  


"Sleep."

"What?" Weiss looked affronted.

"Whatever the question is, the answer is sleep."

Weiss glared at her. "I'm fine."

"Uh- _huh._ If you're fine, why'd you text me? And why'd you text _me?"_

"In reverse order, I texted _you_ because I can't ask any of my teammates, and the only other person I could think of was Dove, who'd just pass the question on to you anyway."  
  


"That makes sense." Nora kicked her feet, feeling a little bit... touched? Excited? Somewhere between those two things. It was kinda cool to be a mostly-a-stranger's life guru.

"And I texted you because..." she trailed off. Groaned.

"D'you need to hide a body?"  
  


Weiss looked up and said indignantly, "What? No!"

"Okay." Nora grinned. "You didn't hear that."

"It's not _bad,_ exactly," Weiss said. "Just... inconveniently timed."

"Yes?" Nora propped her hands under her chin and wiggled her ears.

It was fascinating to watch. Weiss curled forward again, resting her head on one hand. "I'm having a... personal issue with someone."  
  


"Wait, do you really need to hide a body?" Nora asked, suddenly concerned. "I'd totally _get it_ if you murdered Cardin, but we're gonna need more help than just me for that."

"Not _that_ kind of issue! The... _feelings_ kind."

Nora felt her face lighting up. "Oh my gosh, that's awesome!" She paused. "Wait, it's not Ren is it?"  
  


Weiss looked up, startled. "No? Why would it be Ren, I've barely spoken to him."

"No reason!" She tried to think. "So... is it Jaune?"

"No!"

"Ew, _Cardin?"_

_"No!"_ Weiss had a very gratifying look of disgust at that last one. Nora nodded approval.

  
"Right, then who—oh. _Oh!"_ Weiss went bright red and hit her head on the table again. "That's so cute! Is that why you guys keep hiding in the library?"

"No."

"So, lemme get this straight. You want me to help you ask Blake out?"

"No! ...Yes?"

"Huh?"

Weiss groaned. "I don't know!"  
  


"Oh, _oh!_ You're worried your dad's gonna find out." Nora made a face. "I get that, he's sort of scary."

"...He thinks we're already together."  
  


Nora stared at her, making sure to look as incredulous as she _possibly could._ "...How?"

"It's a long story."  
  


"Yeah, it'd kinda have to be." Then, Nora realized something. "Wait, then what are you freaking out about?"

Weiss spluttered a little and then said, "Like I said, it's not a problem in and of itself, it's just... bad timing. We're in the middle of... _something,_ and there's hardly any time for schoolwork let alone..." she threw her hands up. "Infatuation!"

"Okay." Nora clapped her hands together. "First thing—don't call it infatuation. That's like, the least romantic word you could have used."

"I don't have time for being romantic!" Weiss burst out. "That's the point!"  
  


"You could make time." Nora beamed at her. "C'mon, what's the worst that could happen? You're friendship crumbles and you're left alone for the rest of your life?" She forced a laugh, and Weiss gave her an unimpressed look.

Nora cleared her throat. "Okay, whatever. What else is bothering you? 'Cause you look like there's way more than one thing."

She sighed. "Where do I even _start?_ We're from two completely different worlds—"

"Now _that's_ romantic!"

"—and I..." Weiss balled both hands into fists. "I can't be sure if I really _do_ like her like that, or if it's just me latching onto the first person to give me a hug."

Nora stared. "She was the first person to give you a hug?"

"The first person in a _while,_ not _ever."_

"Hmm." She pondered that for a moment. Then she got up, walked around the table, and hugged Weiss. She tensed up immediately, and Nora let go and stepped back.

"So. Do you love me now?"

Weiss glared at her.

"See? It's not just 'cause she hugged you."

"Impeccable logic."

"Isn't it?" Nora sat back in her chair and beamed. "So, problem solved. And you two are already friends, which means you can work around the 'different worlds' thing."

"It's still bad timing," Weiss pointed out.

Nora giggled. "Crushes _never_ have good timing Weiss, c'mon."

Weiss opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. She sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "I'm still going to wait until things are less... intense."

"Okay. And if you need a wingperson..."

"I'll let you know."

"Because I could scrounge up four just off the top of my head. And I think I could go as high as nine."

_"Nine?"_

"Yep! Brine has connections."

Weiss did a full-body shudder and got to her feet. "I don't want to know," she decided. "But... thank you."

"If she says yes, are you gonna call me a genius again?"

A smirk. "I'll consider it."


	34. Tensile Testing [7]

It was five in the evening, and the streets of Vale were darkening as the sun began to sink behind the tallest buildings. Bars of sunlight divided each block from the next, and for one of the most rundown parts of the city it was crowded. Team RSPR had been out there for hours now. Ruby was giving Sky a pouty, resentful sort of look, and Ren wasn't sure to make of it.

"You could at least pretend to be hoping for us to find something," she grumbled.

Sky grinned sheepishly. "Well, finding nothing is better than a known criminal trying to kill us, so...?"

Pyrrha nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose. Though I must admit, I'm a tad restless."

"I didn't think real scouting would be this boring," Ruby complained. "Or that our team could do it."

"We can't get lucky every time," Ren pointed out.

Sky stared at him. "Are you calling the multiple near-death experiences lucky?"

"They _did_ produce results."

Sky threw his hands up in defeat. "I mean, I _guess_ you could look at it like that." Then he paused, cocking his head to one side. "How many barfights do you think Brine have started today?"

Ruby checked her scroll. "None, but we've only been doing this a couple hours. There's still time."

That brought up something Ren had been rather curious about. "How long are we planning on walking around like this?" he asked, shooting a wary look at a nearby teenager who was using a knife as long as her forearm to clean her fingernails very aggressively in their general direction.

"Ugh." Ruby slumped a little. "I was thinking until we had to go back, but I'm not sure how much more of this I've got in me. We haven't found _anything,_ and it's been almost a week."

"Somewhere in this city," Sky said, "a VPD detective just felt an inexplicable urge to strangle someone."

"But we've been out every day!" Ruby threw her hands out wide. _"Brine_ have been out every day, and the closest thing to trouble they ran into was Weiss' dad!"

Sky shuddered. "That's plenty of trouble in my book. Have you _seen_ that guy?"

"Well, yeah, but since when can Brine go out in the city every day for a week and not almost die at least once?"

Ren shook his head ruefully, then returned to scanning the buildings around them. He was sticking to his usual rule—look for weapons and Dust, ignore people that are probably just looking for shelter in abandoned buildings. "I can't help but wonder if we've passed something," he mused. "It's not as if a competent criminal is going to leave incriminating items out where they'd be visible."

Sky shrugged. "There are spots we've passed that seemed shady enough to merit a second look. I'm thinking we get the lay of the land, then go back over the ones that seem really suspicious in a bit more depth." He paused for a moment. "And bring Brine. Because if we start doing that I'm not sure I trust our newfound good luck. Or bad luck, depending on how much you like life-or-death fights."

"Ooh!" Ruby perked up. "We should do some of the in-depth stuff tomorrow, since it's a Sunday. We don't really have the time to really scope things out on weekdays."

The four of them turned onto a narrow side street between two towering walls of storefronts. Most were defunct in this part of Vale—it was straddling the border between the commercial and industrial districts, too far out of the way for businesses to really thrive. Russel had called it the ghost district, which was apparently its unofficial title among those that lived nearby. Or, in a few cases, inside.

Ren kept panning his head back and forth, occasionally noting a building that seemed particularly suspicious. Maybe it was not only occupied but _guarded,_ with someone standing outside the door. Maybe it was the one building on the block that seemed structurally sound. Or maybe, one of them just looked at it and said, "If I were trying to hide from the law, _that's_ where I'd go."

The monotony was broken suddenly by a call on Ruby's scroll. She pulled it out, brow furrowing, then yelped and juggled the device as it rang.

"What's wrong?" Pyrrha asked, peering over her shoulder as she finally caught the scroll.

"Penny!" Ruby jabbed the answer button, then fiddled with the volume so that all of them could hear. "Hi!"

"Salutations!" The voice sounded a little tinny, but so sunny that Ren had to smile.

Ruby bounced up and down a few times. "You actually remembered the number!"

"It was only ten digits," Penny said, sounding honestly confused.

"That's so cool! So, um, what's up?"

"Currently, mostly nitrogen, oxygen, and argon."

Ruby blinked. "Oh. Cool? I meant what's up, like, why did you call?"

There was a moment of silence. Then, "I was wondering if you would like to... hang out?"

"Oh!"

"Is that the right way to say that?"

"Yep, you got it. Is it... um, is it okay for you to go out, with the bodyguards and everything?"

A pause. "Yes— _hic!_ —I have permission. _Hic!"_

"Awesome!" Ruby glanced over her shoulder, mouthing the word, 'Ok?'

Ren nodded. A glance to his left showed that Pyrrha was doing the same while Sky flashed a thumbs-up.

"Yeah! We can do that. Where are you?"

"Twelve degrees, twenty-one minutes—" she stopped suddenly. "I mean, I am on the corner of Orchid street and Neon avenue." Ren raised his eyebrows. He was used to a certain amount of eccentricity in his friends, but even so...

"That's close," Sky said, peering down at his map. "Should we, uh...?"

Pyrrha smiled. "Why not? We could use a break."

The moment they arrived at Penny's location, it became very clear that this would _not_ be a break. She was jittery, glancing over her shoulder every few seconds, and when she saw them she lit up not with excitement but with relief.

"Friends!" she called out, waving one arm over her head.

"Penny!" Ruby led the way as they jogged across the street to meet her. "Are you okay?"

Penny went wide-eyed. "Yes!" she declared, then hiccupped.

Sky's brow furrowed. "Hang on," he said. "What color is my hair?"

"Blue."

"Uh-huh. And... everything is fine?"

"Yes! _Hic!"_

"Right. And you keep hiccupping because...?"

Penny blushed green. "Um..."

"Sky," Ruby said indignantly, "You're being rude."

"Sorry. But, uh... that's sounding like a no on you being okay, and we want to help." He shifted nervously.

Penny glanced around again. "I'm... confused. There are more ships here than there should be."

Ren blinked. "You mean Atlas arriving early," he supplied. "I believe that was in response to an attack by the White Fang."

"There are more people in the embassy." Penny shifted uncomfortably. "Only a few have cl—um, I only know a few of them— _hic!_ —so I need to be on my best behavior."

"Okay..." Sky frowned. He and Ren exchanged a look. "Question. The people you're staying with. Would they hurt you?"

"Of course not!" Penny said indignantly.

"Cool. You're not afraid of them?"

"No!"

"And you're not worried about anything at all."

Penny shook her head, then hiccupped. Ren glanced at Sky, then quirked an eyebrow questioningly. His partner shrugged.

"Er, wild guess..." Sky rubbed the back of his neck. "Do you... hiccup when you lie?"

"No? _Hic!"_

"Sky!" Ruby nudged him. "If she doesn't want to talk about it she doesn't have to."

"I know! I was just making sure she was okay and everything."

Ren squinted at Penny. She still seemed tense and jumpy. By this point, he was collecting unexplainable phenomena like bottle caps—the green blush, the metal in her arm, the hiccupping...

"Do you want to talk to us about what's wrong?" he asked.

Penny froze. Then, slowly, she nodded. "I have a secret," she said, hugging her arms across her stomach. "The people coming in don't know, and now I can't be myself at home. I have to act... normal."

"Well, you've come to the right place," Ruby declared, planting her feet and puffing out her chest like she was posing for the cover of a comic book—a place Ren fully expected her to end up someday. "We're all weirdos here."

"I can guarantee," Ren said solemnly, "That no matter the secret, I have seen stranger things." Penny looked doubtful, but he didn't say that lightly—Nora was forbidden from caffeine now, but in order for that to happen he'd needed to endure the first _incident_.

"I'm not that weird, but I am a giant dork, so I think it evens out," Sky added.

Pyrrha fidgeted a little. "I'm not sure what classifies as normal."

"See?" Ruby said. "We're all weird at Beacon, you're totally part of the club."

"I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing," Penny said carefully.

"Uh." Sky looked around. "Does it have anything to do with you vanishing after that thing with Torchwick?"

Penny didn't answer.

Sky groaned. "Ah, geez, I shouldn't have pointed out the hiccup thing." He paused, thinking. "Okay, no, I've got it. Just remember to sometimes refuse to answer questions. Even really dumb ones, like... 'What's your favorite color?' And sometimes when someone asks a slightly incriminating question and you're actually innocent, you should refuse to answer. Then, if you really _do_ need to be able to not answer a question, you can do it without seeming super suspicious, right?"

Penny blinked at him a few times. Then she beamed. "I decline to state whether or not that statement is true."

"...I may have created a monster."

"No comment!"

It turned into a game, somehow. They walked aimlessly, taking random turns and making outlandish accusations at each other—'Did you assassinate the Vacuan prince?'—and coming up with new ways to refuse to answer. Pyrrha delivered a line she swore had been given to her in complete seriousness by a manager in case of a scandal—'I don't recall this person, perhaps they only dreamed I was there.' Ruby and Sky were still both giggling uncontrollably when they reached somewhere that might be called a destination. Might.

"Is that door made of metal or just rust?" Sky asked, pointing to his left.

"I need an attorney," Penny told him.

"...Yeah, I'm leaning towards rust, too."

"Um." Ruby glanced around. "Not to seem freaked out or anything, but why are we here? Because we've been wandering around the dangerous parts of Vale all week and I still don't think I've ever seen a street this gross before." As if to make her point, she scuffed her foot along the road and winced when a bit of damp-looking paper stuck to her boot.

Penny hesitated. "I... would like to tell you the secret."

Team RSPR all glanced at one another. "Uh," Ruby said. "Okay?"

"It's okay if it's weird?"

"Yep!"

It took another moment, but she eventually reached up to her shoulder—the spot where she'd been wounded in the fight with Torchwick. "I'm not real," she said, looking Ren dead in the eyes. "You saw."

His team all turned and stared at him. "I saw metal," he said, his eyebrows furrowing. "I'd assumed it was a prosthetic."

Penny shook her head. "It's not really skin. It's a synthetic polymer designed to mimic the texture of—"

"Wait, wait." Sky made a time-out sign with his hands. "Are... are you telling us you're an android?"

"That is the proper term," she agreed.

"Whoa." He rocked back on his heels. _"Whoa."_

"What do you mean you're not real?" Ruby protested.

"Well, I wasn't _born._ I was made!"

"You have an aura, don't you?" Sky reached out a hand, then pulled it back.

"That is correct!" Penny said, perking up a little. "I'm the first!" Then she seemed to wilt. "But... I'm not real."

"Pfft." Sky flicked his wrist dismissively. "That's silly. Humans and faunus are robots too, we're just made out of grosser parts."

"Yeah!" Ruby nodded. "Just because you're made of metal instead of squishy guts doesn't mean you're less of a person!"

"In many cultures the aura is considered to be a representation of the soul." Pyrrha smiled at Penny. "I think that makes you as real as they come."

"Agreed," Ren added. Privately, he thought that Nora had still said and done much stranger things.

Penny stared at them for a moment. Then she squeaked and went in for a hug. Ruby took the brunt of it this time. "Okay," she wheezed. "Glad we could— _hrk!_ —help." When their new friend pulled away, her eyes were shining.

"So!" Ruby smiled. "Uh... is anyone else craving noodles?"

"I decline to state," Penny declared proudly.

* * *

"Who _are_ you?" Dove muttered to himself. He flicked through another page of search results, frowning when he realized that the mysterious other researcher hadn't been on very long today. There were only about twelve searches on the White Fang, all oddly specific and pertaining to activity in _Mountain Glenn_ —had the Fang even been around that long? They were also, as far as he could tell, fruitless. No clue to the searcher's identity, either. He tried going down a little further, but all he found was some stupid how-to dating article.

It wasn't like he expected much different, at this point—he'd had the idea to start checking a couple days ago and still had no results. The terminals were anonymous, so it could be _anyone_ in Beacon, and to cap it off they shared search histories between them, so he couldn't even wait near one of the terminals and try to catch them in the act.

Still. He wasn't above piggybacking off their work if they ever actually found anything. It seemed that so far, they were either making no progress at all, or they—like he, Ren, and Sky—were using only raw news articles and making all the useful connections themself. He'd keep at it, though. It only took a few minutes.

Or, in today's case, a little over half an hour. Maybe it was time to admit to himself that he was procrastinating.

Heaving a sigh, he stood up and walked out of the library. He made a quick stop at the cafeteria for two coffees—maybe Weiss had been the one to come to him for advice, but that didn't mean he couldn't pick up a thing or two from her—then made his way to the rec room.

It turned out this place was a common haunt for second-years—fourth-years were hardly ever around, the third-years had their own lounge, and first-years tended to spend more time in the cafeteria or their dorms. Velvet wasn't in there when he peered inside, so he paced around in the hall for a few minutes, trying not to look too obviously anxious.

Velvet didn't so much _arrive_ as walk past the entrance and do a double-take when she saw him. Her ears perked up a little at the smell of the coffee. "Dove?"

"Hello." He offered her one of the coffees. "I don't know how you like it."

She took a tentative sip. "Close enough. Thank you."

Dove shifted from foot to foot. "I reread a lot of Viridian."

"What did you think?"

He took a gulp from the coffee, buying time to think of how to phrase everything. "I'm confused," he said eventually. "I've only known you and Blake personally, and a sample size of two isn't _much_ but... even so."

"It's enough to make you question what you've been taught."

Dove nodded, swallowing nervously.

"Well." Velvet ran a hand through her hair. One of her fingers clipped her left ear, pushing it backwards until it sprang up again. "This is a first."

"Huh?"

"Usually when humans ask me about this, they dig in their heels. Refuse to listen."

"If I had a terminal disease," Dove said, "I'd want to know. If someone I thought was a friend hated me, I'd want to know. When I'm wrong, I like to know. I don't like self-deception."

Velvet lifted the Styrofoam cup in a small salute. A little of the tension drained out of him, and he nodded in acknowledgement. She took a small step sideways, like she was just about to leave, but at that moment someone else called her name.

"Coco?" She looked over her shoulder. "What are you—"

Dove inched back a little when a second-year he'd never met before—Coco, apparently—came up beside Velvet and folded her arms across her chest. "You okay?"

"I'm fine."

Coco turned her head to the side and pulled down a pair of sunglasses, peering over their rims and looking as skeptical as any human being he'd ever seen. "Really fine?" she asked, "Or pretending to be so that no one makes a scene?"

"Really fine," Velvet answered, smiling.

"Hello." Dove held out a hand.

Coco stared at him intently. His own face was reflected back at him in the tinted lenses. "Is he that guy that—"

"Asked about Viridian? Yes."

"Hmm." He had the sudden sense that he was being weighed, examined, and tested. "You know we're always happy to commit murder for you, don't you?"

"Coco, _no."_

Dove cracked a smile. "You remind me of my teammates," he decided.

"Wait." Coco peered over the rims of the sunglasses again. Her eyes were a dark, warm brown. "Why do you look familiar? I don't pay attention to the newborns."

"They're _first-years,_ Coco," Velvet put in.

"I definitely know you from somewhere. Why—" Coco snapped her fingers. "You're on that crazy team!"

He sighed. "That sounds about right."

"The ones that crashed an airship into Port's classroom!" Coco laughed. "You're going to be _fun_ when you're old enough to drink."

"That's not going to happen," Dove said. "Ever." He was pretty sure he could trust Yang not to overdo it—she was surprisingly level-headed in some strangely specific circumstances—but Russel had no self-control and Nora might break something fundamental about the universe before she figured out what her tolerance was.

"They turn eighteen before the end of the year, I'll bet." Coco winked, then replaced the shades.

"Coco," Velvet said, giving her an annoyed look. "You shouldn't encourage them." Then she turned to Dove. "Did you really...?"

"Yes."

"But, _how?"_

He considered that for a moment. "My teammates get along too well," he said. "And one of them thinks that a few lessons when he was twelve is an acceptable replacement for a pilot's license."

Velvet shook her head in disbelief. "Even _we_ never did anything like that."

"Challenge accepted."

_"Coco!"_

Dove coughed politely. "I should head back to my dorm soon," he said. "It's almost curfew."

"Not for us," Coco said, smirking. "We have until ten."

"I'd like to get to bed a little early, anyway," Velvet decided. "I have a lot of homework to catch up on tomorrow."

Coco's expression darkened. "You're not redoing _all_ of it, are you?"

Velvet looked away. "It's not so bad. I remember most of what I wrote."

"That's not the _point,_ it's not your fault if some fu—" Coco stopped. "I know, I _know,_ you get to decide..."

"And I did." Velvet turned to Dove, who was looking from one to the other and feeling like he was definitely missing something. "We can walk to the dorms together, if you want. We're a floor below you."

He nodded. "I would appreciate that, thank you."

They made small-talk as they walked. A lot of it ended up being about Viridian, and it turned out that Velvet also knew a surprising amount about old films. Inevitably, the Vytal Festival was brought up.

"We're thinking of sending Coco and Yatsu to the finals," Velvet told him.

"It's not decided yet," Coco said, frowning.

Velvet looked down. "You'll do better than I would."

"That's bull, but whatever."

Dove rubbed at the back of his neck and said, "Well, I've never seen any of you fight."

"Don't listen to her," Coco told him. "She's brilliant. Plus—" she gave Velvet a pleading look. "I'm telling you, you'd be great for the singles."

Velvet sighed. "I'll think about it. I don't really like the spotlight, but..." she glanced at Dove. "I've been thinking it might help. People have been really tense lately, and I might be able to show them a more positive side to things."

Coco gave him a curious look. "What do you know," she mused. "An infant _can_ be a positive influence."

Maybe he should have stuck up for his own pride, or the pride of the entire first year class, but Dove decided not to bother. They walked in silence for a moment, cresting the hill that led to the dorm. Just as they were approaching the doors, Coco sighed and said, "I can't wait to get out of this building."

Dove frowned. "Don't all students stay here?"

"Not the fourth-years," Velvet explained.

Coco made an irritated noise. "They're in another dorm, near the gym. Such a waste, too—they get _suites,_ but they're almost never around to enjoy them."

"I assume that's because they have missions?"

She nodded. "That's the main change this year. We only have class four days a week, now. Wednesdays are in the Emerald Forest, usually doing errands for the professors."

"I didn't know that."

"They'll explain it closer to the end of the year," Velvet assured him. "Though it's almost alarming how little we see the oldest students. We knew a few of them from last year, and they really are _busy."_

"When you say suites—" Dove started, but he was cut off when Coco opened the double-doors leading into the first-floor hallway. There was a harsh clatter, a muffled shout, a heavy thump.

Dove heaved a sigh. _Please don't be my team..._

* * *

Cardin wasn't sure what the girls thought they were doing, but he was glad they were doing it. They hadn't been in the dorm before curfew in days, and would stay up until past midnight in the bathroom. That was kind of annoying if he needed to go in the middle of the night, but it wasn't like it was hard to get them to clear out for a minute. Weiss had been acting _even weirder_ the past few days, which was almost impressive. She kept jumping ship in the middle of conversations with Blake, avoiding eye-contact, and sometimes dropping things. Part of that might be that her dad still hadn't called since Wednesday's café disaster. It was almost enough to be annoying, particularly the bathroom thing, but it meant the two girls were barely ever around. That meant that on a day-to-day basis it felt less like he was sharing a room with three other people, and more like he had one idiot roommate and two extra beds.

He was currently enjoying having the room to himself—lying on his stomach, reading a magazine, and playing music through the speaker of his scroll. Fourth year would be like this all the time, according to Leonardo. Teams got suites, with small individual rooms and common kitchen and living space. He could not _wait_ for the day he could finally stop sharing with his team.

There was a knock at the door. Cardin ignored it—probably one of Jaune's stupid friends—but a moment later his partner walked in. "Come on," he said, gesturing to the hallway behind him. "I had an idea."

Cardin didn't move. He wasn't sure how long the freak and the neat-freak were going to keep testing the limits of caffeine, there was no reason to waste the time.

"I'm serious about Ermine." Jaune folded his arms. "And I figured out how to prove it. We can hide you around the corner in the hallway. I'll go talk to them, and you listen in."

"That's stupid." Cardin turned his attention to the magazine. It was complete garbage, something about a celebrity marriage or divorce or whatever, but he didn't have anything better to do. And he was _definitely_ including squatting around a corner while Jaune tried to lecture Ermine. But, then again...

"Look, I just want you to know what they're really like, and if it turns out you're right—"

"We make a bet."

"Huh?"

Cardin shrugged. "I think you're too much of a moron to lead the team. Always have. So, if you turn out to be paranoid, too, I think I should take the reins. I want a bet."

Jaune stared at him for a second. "I thought one of the conditions for the first bet was that it was permanent. No take-backs."

"Yeah," Cardin said, "except that you won by complete dumb luck."

His partner made an irritated noise, then nodded reluctantly. "Fine. But this time, you're agreeing the terms are fair. You can't turn around and say it was luck. There will be no third bet, got it?"

"Whatever."

"Yeah, okay, come on!" Jaune ducked out the door, and Cardin begrudgingly left the empty dorm behind.

They ended up in the first floor hallway, about fifteen feet away from ERMN's door. Jaune pointed to a potted plant, and it took almost an entire minute for Cardin to get bored of laughing his ass off and making fun of his idiot partner for trying to reenact a spy movie. Then he crouched behind it and tried to keep the snickering to a minimum.

Jaune knocked on the door, then took a few steps back and waited. Cardin watched through the lower leaves— _he was hiding behind a potted plant, this was so dumb—_ as the door opened and Nelson poked his head out.

"What?" he demanded. Then, "Hang on, you're Cardin's leader."

"Yep, that's me." Jaune put his hands on his hips, trying to look stern, and Cardin had to turn his head away so that he wouldn't laugh and mess up the bet.

"I want to talk to you. All four of you."

Nelson snorted. "We've got better shit to do. Scram."

"Hey!"

There was an odd thump, and when Cardin peeked out of his hiding place he saw that Jaune had shoved a foot in the door.

"Come on out. All of you. Or I'll keep knocking."

"God, _what?"_ Leonardo shouted. "What do you want?"

"I want you jerks to leave Cardin alone."

Cardin rolled his eyes. _What an idiot._

"Ooh," Rufous cooed. "What, you don't like him hanging out with the bad crowd?"

"Uh... well, yeah, that's pretty much it."

"Great. We'll take that under advisement."

Another thud, as they tried to close the door and found that Jaune was in the way.

"I'm not done!"

"Yes, you are." Cardin tensed—that was Marten.

"Why are you even bothering to hang around him?" Jaune demanded. "He's two years younger."

"We just love him _sooo_ much," Rufous said, then snorted and started to laugh. Cardin frowned. Jaune might just jump on that and call it a win, even if it didn't mean anything except that he'd asked a stupid question.

He didn't, though. "Is it funny?"

"Yes?" Rufous sounded confused. "Obviously it's funny. You're not _that_ dumb, are you?"

"But Cardin is?" Jaune asked.

_That little—_

"It's almost sad," Leonardo sighed. "He's like a lost puppy."

"So's his partner," Nelson added.

Rufous giggled. "Maybe that's their team theme. Pathetic animals."

Cardin peered around the vase again. There was Leo, smirking and combing his hair back with his fingers. Nelson peeking out from behind him, with Rufous leaning against the doorframe with one foot up against the wall. He couldn't see Marten from here, but it was really them. Jaune was still talking. He tuned it out. He just stood up, crossed over to the doorframe, and sank his fist into Leonardo's _lying face._

"Want to say that again?!" he shouted. "Huh?"

Nelson stared at him, wide-eyed, but Rufous only laughed harder. "Leo, your _face!"_

Leonardo put a hand to his mouth, where Cardin had struck him. "Go back to your dorm, Winchester," he snapped.

"Aw, c'mon." Rufous sniggered. "Are you mad, Leo? Who _cares,_ the joke was getting old anyway."

Cardin swung at him, too, but he ducked the blow and kicked out. The next thing he knew, he was lying against the wall on the other side of the hallway. He tried to roll to his feet, staggered. Jaune rushed at ERMN with a shout, only for Nelson to grab him by the shoulder and throw him out of the room.

"Go away," he said. "I'm trying to finish an essay. Rufous!" The boy was still laughing, holding his stomach with one hand. "Shut up."

"I can't help it! It's a natural reaction to watching someone punch Leo!"

"Screw you," Leonardo grumbled.

Cardin ran at him. He lashed out at his head, his chest, tried to kick him between the legs. Leonardo backed up, cursing. Then something collided with his head and he went down in a heap. His vision went fuzzy, and when it resolved itself he could see Marten staring at him. His hand was outstretched, clenched in a fist, and he was giving it a strange look.

"Dude." Nelson whacked his partner on the shoulder. "Careful, seriously. You don't wanna crack a skull by accident." Cardin felt a boot collide with his side and yelped.

"An accident," Martin said, looking down at him with mild interest.

"Marten, stop," Leonardo said, sounding irritated. "I don't want to deal with Goodwitch, can we just—" Another kick. Cardin grunted and scrabbled for purchase on the tiled floor, trying to push himself up.

"Hey!" There was a thump, and a muffled curse from Leonardo.

"Just _go away,"_ he groaned. "This is such bull— _ow!"_

When Cardin managed to sit up and look, Jaune was hanging off Leonardo's back, both arms around the boy's neck and his feet kicking at the backs of his knees. Rufous grabbed him and dragged him off, letting him sprawl on the ground.

"Okay." Leonardo rolled up the sleeves of his uniform. "This is getting stupid." Cardin was just standing up again when the third-year lashed out. He was knocked off balance, stumbled. He shook it off and set his feet, glaring, breathing hard through his nose. This _asshole._ No one got away with shit like that, not _ever._ He was going to—

"Hey, uh, Cardin?" Jaune called out, from where he was standing a few paces away. "Let's just go."

"Please do," Leonardo said, gesturing towards the staircase. Cardin swung at him again, missed. Leo grabbed him by the shirt and hoisted him up. He kicked out, met only air. "Right. Now." He was being dragged, his shoes scraping on the floor. He struggled, landed an elbow against the other boy's ribs. He didn't seem to notice.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Put me down and _fight_ me!"

"I told you this was a stupid idea, Rufous," Leonardo grumbled. "I _told_ you he'd get annoying."

"Annoying? I want popcorn."

"Come on. Let him go." Jaune's voice was getting closer. "We'll just walk out."

"Yeah, sure." Leonardo snorted. "I believe that." Cardin snarled and tugged at the hand in his shirt.

 _I'm not going. I'm not. I'm..._ He struggled harder as he caught a glimpse of the staircase. In a last desperate bid for... for _something,_ he dug in his heels and forced himself to a stop. Then, everything went still. He stopped breathing, and his hearing grew muffled, as if he were underwater. He tried to wiggle his fingers and found that he couldn't. He tried to blink, but his eyelids wouldn't move.

"The fuck?" Leonardo let out a confused noise, and then a grunt of exertion. Cardin wanted to look and see what he was doing, but he couldn't turn his head. "Shit."

Rufous started laughing again. "Are you... are you _stuck?"_

"Shut the hell up and help me!"

Jaune's face passed into his field of view, his eyes wide. "Are you okay? What's..." He looked over Cardin's shoulder. "What the heck did you _do?"_

"Nothing!"

Cardin's lungs started to burn. He panicked, tried to move his arms, open his mouth, _breathe._ As he struggled, he found that he was tense in a way he'd never been before, like a length of rope in his stomach had gone taught. He relaxed, and collapsed to his hands and knees in a fit of coughing.

Leonardo kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling to the floor. Jaune knelt next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder that Cardin really wished were a fist in Leonardo's face instead.

"You can't even push a first-year," Rufous said, snickering. "That's sad."

"You know what?" Leonardo said, voice dangerously low. "We'll be fine as long as we don't go too far."

"What?" Jaune straightened. "Hey, wait—" He yelped, and there was a small scuffle that ended with the sound of a blow.

Cardin struggled to his feet and found Marten walking towards him. He backed up, wary, then swore when the guy grabbed him by the ear and _twisted._ He tried to pull away, but that only made it hurt worse. Then Marten planted a knee in his gut once, twice, three times, and his aura broke. He howled. Suddenly the hand on his ear had gone from painful to _agonizing,_ and he moved his neck at an odd angle in an attempt to alleviate the pressure. A kick to one knee, and he was on the ground.

Marten let go of his ear and shoved him over. Cardin looked up at him, breathless, the side of his head feeling like it was burning. He touched a shaking hand to it, and it came away red.

Then Jaune dodged past Rufous and launched himself at Marten in a full-body tackle. He barely even budged. He just stepped sideways, then flung Jaune down the hallway, sending him sliding on his back until he crashed into one of the potted plants.

Cardin tried to get up again, but Marten planted a foot on his back and forced him down. "Too easy," he said quietly. Cardin went limp.

Just then, the front door opened. "What the _hell_ is going on?!" A woman's voice barked.

All four of the older boys froze. Leonardo straightened up, a nervous, trembling grin fixed upon his face. "Coco!" he said, trying to sound nonchalant. "We were, uh..."

"Go inside. _Now._ I'll deal with you later."

Just like that, they went. Cardin didn't look up to watch them leave. He let his head rest against the cool tiled floor, blood tracing from his ear to his chin, and tried not to shake. Someone walked up to him and crouched down.

"Hey." Jaune helped him into a sitting position, then knelt next to him. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think they'd, uh..." He wasn't even bruised.

"Um." Cardin looked up. Dove and Velvet were both standing near the door, looking uncomfortable. It was Velvet who'd spoken. "Are you... alright?"

"Shut up," he grumbled. Coco stalked up and stood over him.

"Sorry, what was that?"

His throat closed up. He looked down at the ground.

"That's what I thought."

"Now isn't the time, Coco," Velvet said reproachfully. "He's hurt."

"Good!"

_"Coco."_

"We should go back to our dorm," Jaune decided. "Can you, uh..." Then he smacked himself in the forehead. "Hang on, I got it."

"What—" Cardin cut off mid-sentence when Jaune put a hand on his shoulder. Pins and needles spread all up and down his arm, then over his whole body. He began to glow a ghostly white. Even as he watched, the color turned red and sank into his skin. He shuddered—it felt like bathing in _ants._

He tried to squirm away, but he could already feel the pain in his ear ebbing. The blood stopped flowing, and he wiped away what was already there with his sleeve. "Okay." Jaune bent down and helped him up. "Let's go."

Cardin looked away. He wanted to shove his partner off him and walk up the stairs himself, but his legs were trembling. It took a long time to get back upstairs, and it was only when he was away from where Coco or Velvet or Dove could see him that he let himself go completely boneless.

"Cardin," Jaune grunted, hauling him up the last stair. "You kinda gotta help me out, here."

He wobbled a little as he walked, but was steadier by the time they reached the dorm. Jaune fumbled to unlock the door, then opened it and led him inside. Cardin flopped down on his bed.

"I'm sorry," Jaune said again. "I didn't mean for it to go like that."

Cardin didn't respond. His face felt like it was burning—he wanted to get up, to hit someone, but he was too tired to move. _Easy prey._

"You win," he mumbled, voice cracking. "I guess. Fuck." He wiped at his face again—probably there was still blood. That was it.

Jaune sat next to him. "It's no big deal, right? Now you know they're jerks."

Cardin tried to laugh, but it came out shaky and he stopped. "I can't..."

"No, you're right. Sorry." Jaune sighed. "It's a big deal for you."

"Stop."

"Huh?"

"Stop being..." Cardin snarled wordlessly and threw his hands out. "You were right, I _know,_ you don't have to shove it in my face."

"That's not—I'm not trying to do that. I'm just, uh... it was too quiet and I panicked, I don't know."

"I guess I'm your fucking lapdog, now," he said miserably. Jaune wasn't even scratched.

"You're not."

"Yeah, _right."_

There was silence for a moment.

"I think you just found your semblance," Jaune said. "That's cool, right?"

Cardin thought back to the strange stillness, the feeling of being caught in amber, his chest aching. "It's shit."

Jaune sighed. "I know that fight didn't go well," he said. "But... come on. We're two years younger than them. That'd be like... like two of Ruby's old classmates trying to fight all of team Brine."

"Shut up." His throat was still burning, like he'd swallowed something acidic. _"You're_ not beat up."

"Well, yeah." He chuckled. "Weiss says I'm like one of those inflatable dolls that just keep popping back up no matter how many times you knock them down. But, y'know, they can't really hit back."

The burning spilled over. Cardin wiped at his eyes furiously, grinding into them with the heels of his hands.

"Hey, uh..." Jaune sounded lost for words. "It's okay, I promise."

"Stop _talking_ like that," Cardin snarled.

His partner looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay."

"And stop saying _okay._ I'm not a fucking kid. I can... fuck."

Suddenly, something seemed to click. Jaune's expression cleared. He frowned, looking a little apprehensive, then cleared his throat and said, "You know how I got into Beacon?"

Cardin stared at him. "Am I supposed to _care?"_

Jaune grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, uh... I lied."

"You—what?"

"I sent in false transcripts. Figured I'd fake it 'till I made it." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Uh... obviously I'd rather you didn't repeat that."

"Why the hell would you tell me?" Cardin asked, baffled.

Jaune shrugged. "I thought it would make things even." He got to his feet. "I'm going to go. Unless you want to do something... yeah, no, didn't think so." Then he ducked out the door and disappeared.

Cardin lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. This was the part where he should go and tell Goodwitch. Jaune would get kicked out, and the team would be his. Any idiot who would just hand damning secrets like that to someone who hated him obviously wasn't fit to lead.

Taking a deep breath, Cardin let himself go still. In a quiet room, the way his semblance muffled his hearing meant that he could listen to his own heartbeat, slow and steady. There was a sense of surety to it, like he could stay this way forever and just watch the world go by around him, on fast-forward, people buzzing around like flies and never reaching him.

He broke the spell and breathed in. Bizarrely, he _did_ feel better. Lighter, maybe.

"Fucking Jaune," he grumbled, but there wasn't any heat to it.


	35. Tensile Testing [8]

Blake didn't remember the nightmare.

She woke up on the floor, tangled in sheets and shuddering at the feeling of cold sweat sticking the fabric to her skin. It took a second to figure out where she was—she'd fallen in between her bed and Jaune's, with one of the straps of his knapsack digging into her shoulder.

Sitting up, she looked at what little of the room she could see—the plaster ceiling, cracked here and there, the wooden floorboards and scruffy red carpet. It seemed so alien. She got to her feet, glancing down at Jaune. He was splayed out on his stomach, arms and legs going in all directions, and even from here she could tell that he was drooling a little. Cardin was lying face-up, letting out the occasional grunting snore.

Weiss was awake.

Blake startled so badly she almost fell over again.

"Are you alright?" Weiss asked. "I heard you fall."

"Fine." She grabbed her scroll from the storage cabinet at the foot of her bed and poked her head in the closet to look for a clean uniform.

"It's not even six yet."

Blake shrugged. "I doubt I could get back to sleep. I'll probably spend a couple hours in the library and then go to breakfast."

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "Will you _actually_ go to breakfast, or are you just trying to get me to go back to bed?"

"I'll go," she said defensively. "I can—"

Cardin's snoring hitched.

Weiss rolled her eyes and walked over to the closet for a change of clothes. "You don't have to do that." Blake insisted. "Go back to sleep."

All she got in reply was a dirty look.

The moment they left the dorm, Weiss turned to her and asked, "Why are you up this early?"

"I fell out of bed."

Weiss gave her an unimpressed look.

"What?"

"I don't even know where to start," Weiss said, annoyed. "You do realize that there's only so much you can demand from a body before it shuts down, don't you?"

"It's not like I set an alarm."

"No." Weiss rolled her eyes. "But _maybe_ waking up on the floor at such an ungodly hour is a warning sign."

"Weiss—"

"Or the headaches, those could _also_ be interpreted that way."

"I'm doing the best I can," she snapped.

Weiss looked down. "I know. Just... let's take a break today."

"I can't ignore—"

"Not the whole day," Weiss allowed, though she didn't look happy. "How about... from ten to one?"

"I don't know..."

"Let me put it this way." Weiss looked her dead in the eye. "If father decides to stage an intervention, _someone_ is going to commit a murder." Blake snorted. "I will take that as a yes."

"Fine."

Weiss nodded sharply, then without warning turned on her heel and half-jogged, half-ran in the direction of the library. Blake stared after her for a moment. Maybe she was sleep-deprived and catching herself scribbling down the slogans from Mountain Glenn advertisements during class instead of taking notes, but even she had noticed that her partner had been acting strange. Hell, _Jaune_ had noticed.

In the end, summoning the mental energy to speculate proved to be a bit too much this early in the morning. Blake trudged after her and resolved to ask about it once they were in Vale.

She hadn't realized how exhausted she would be by then. Weiss hopefully didn't know that while she'd gone to bed around midnight, she'd tossed and turned until past one, given up, read through some more old newspapers about Mountain Glenn, and then crawled back under the covers at around two. Add to that another four hours of poring through dense books with tiny print?

"You might have a point," she conceded, as Weiss grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her out of the library—and past a bemused-looking Dove. "The words are starting to get blurry."

Weiss flashed a triumphant smirk over her shoulder. Blake rolled her eyes—that expression had been a constant source of irritation at the beginning of the year. She'd been _so sure_ that they'd never be friends. She definitely wouldn't have even entertained the idea that she might _shake hands_ with _Jacques Schnee._ Now, here she was—regretting one of those things very much and the other not at all.

It didn't take long for Weiss to let go of her arm, but she kept glancing back to make sure that Blake was following. She wasn't planning on sneaking away—what would even be the point? They'd been banging their heads against a metaphorical wall for over a week now with no results. There was _nothing_ in Mountain Glenn worth blowing up. There was _no_ mention of the White Fang having ties to the place. Maybe it was only a waypoint, and the Dust would be shipped somewhere else afterwards, but they had no way of knowing if that was the case, or where it might be going. Dead end.

Weiss nudged her shoulder. "You're obsessing again."

"It feels pointless," Blake admitted. "We're making no progress."

"That's part of why I think we need a break. We have to pace ourselves—this might take _months._ There's a difference between going without sleep for a night or two versus several weeks."

"That's the problem. I'm not sleeping _because_ we aren't finding anything. I lie down and I just..." she trailed off, biting her lip and wincing.

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "You didn't go to bed when I did."

"...No."

"Look, I know that sometimes you can't really help it, but _please,_ wake me up next time."

"So that _neither_ of us get any sleep."

"So that I can _help."_

Blake managed a weak chuckle. "Your idea of helping seems just as self-destructive as my idea of research."

"Hush, you." Weiss tossed her head and marched ahead, though not fast enough to hide a smug grin. Blake shook her head, smiling a little. _How did I ever manage to hate her?_ It had only been a couple months, and she was already having difficulty imagining it.

They threaded their way through crowds, walking without any particular end-goal. Blake dodged around a woman in a suit, briefly caught the eye of a dog-eared faunus with glasses, and then finally pushed through to a clearer part of the sidewalk where Weiss was waiting. "Where are we—"

"Hey!"

She whirled around, her hand going for where the hilt of her sword would have been. _Stupid. Shouldn't have left it._ But if she hadn't, she might have attracted more trouble—the police didn't tend to react well to armed faunus.

Instead of a menacing attacker, though... "Sun?"

He was standing across the street, jumping up and down, waving both hands above his head and shouting—which one older woman passing within arms-length of him obviously did _not_ appreciate. "You didn't kill each other!" he whooped.

"Let's go before he causes even _more_ of a scene," Weiss suggested.

They crossed the street with Sun _still_ shouting, then finally got close enough for Weiss to glare at him properly.

"Hey," he said, this time at a more normal volume. "What's up?"

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"I've been keeping an eye out for you guys," he went on. "I thought it would be cool to talk to you again, see how things are going. But, uh, I never got a number or anything."

Blake saw Weiss bristle. "Was that supposed to be smooth?"

"No?" He blinked. "Oh, yeah, no. Sorry." He held his hands up. "Just wanted to make sure you guys weren't getting into fights with Torchwick, or each other. Honest!" Then he grinned and gestured to the pair of them. "And look! Hanging out! It's almost like you're friends or something!"

They both glanced at each other, as if making sure they weren't about to make a major faux pas. "Yes," Blake said, with a little smile. "It is."

"Awesome!" He flashed a thumbs-up.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Weiss said, "but... what are you doing here? You're not a student at Beacon, but you're obviously in training _somewhere."_

"Oh, yeah. I'm from Haven. That's _normally_ something that comes up in the first twenty-four hours of knowing each other."

Weiss winced. "Right."

"But... yeah. I'm here for the Festival."

"It's a little early, isn't it?" Blake asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe. I wanted to get the lay of the land first. My team is getting here in about two weeks."

"Well." Weiss lifted her chin. "We look forward to destroying you in the tournament."

"You _wish!"_ He laughed.

They walked in silence for a moment. Then Sun coughed and said, "So, uh... you guys seem even more tired than the last time I saw you, which is kind of impressive. What gives?"

"Homework," Weiss said, completely deadpan.

"...Right." He shrugged, flicking his tail back and forth. "Okay, whatever. Don't tell me."

"Sorry, Sun." Blake flashed an apologetic smile. "We're taking a break at the moment, if that helps."

"That's good." Then Weiss took another step forward, and his gaze dropped to her leg. "Holy _crap,_ what happened there?"

"A falling rock," she lied easily.

"Uh- _huh._ Yeah, look, if this is another 'homework' thing..."

Weiss glanced at her, raising her eyebrow in a silent question. Blake hesitated a moment, then nodded. "I got it from a chainsaw," her partner said, nonchalant.

Sun stared. Then he put both hands to his face and made a little squeaking noise. "That's _wicked—_ I mean, uh, dangerous! Very dangerous!"

"Thank you, I think."

"Uh, how?" He blinked a few times. "'Cause, last time I checked... weird thing to get attacked with."

Blake grimaced. "We ran into the White Fang again."

"Let it be known that a dark tunnel is _not_ a fun place to fight a faunus as a human."

"Okay." Sun held up a finger. "Okay. I figured the mess at the docks was a one-time thing, but... is that just a Tuesday at Beacon?"

Blake opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off when Weiss yelped, "Hey!"

A shutter went off. Blake whirled around and recognized a man she'd noticed earlier standing at the entrance to an alley—tall, dog-eared, wearing round glasses. He was holding up a scroll like he'd just taken a picture.

"What on Remnant is wrong with you?" Weiss snapped. "You don't just photograph people without their—" he turned and ran. They followed, but had already lost him by the time they crossed through the alley and into the next street.

"Why...?" Blake shook her head. "What _was_ that?"

"Um." Sun stared at them. "Did that guy just... that's _not_ cool. It's fine, though! I mean, I think. Neither of you were doing anything embarrassing, so it's just a normal picture."

"He wasn't taking the picture of _us,_ Sun," Weiss said.

"What?"

"The camera was definitely pointing at you. I saw it."

His eyes went wide. "Oh. _Oh._ Uh..."

"I just don't understand _why."_

"Hey!" Sun pointed at his bare chest, looking indignant. "Some people appreciate how much work this is!"

Weiss started pacing agitatedly. "I've seen him before."

"What?!" Blake burst out.

"After the café incident. We were wandering around Vale, and I saw his reflection in one of the windows. It looked like he was staring, but by the time I turned around he was gone."

Sun made a time-out sign with his hands. "So... you have a stalker."

"Not a stalker," Blake said, grimacing. "A tail."

"Uh, _no._ It's definitely me with the tail," he said, face splitting into a cheeky grin.

She rolled her eyes. "A tail—as in someone, probably one of the White Fang, is following us."

"And... took a picture of _me?"_

"Exactly," Weiss said. "It doesn't make sense."

"I mean, I know everyone wants a piece of _this,_ but getting distracted in the middle of a top-secret mission? For shame."

"Sun." Blake pinched the bridge of her nose. "This is serious."

"I'm dead serious! It's not like there's any other reason to be staring at _me_ when the vigilantes are right next to me!"

"We're not vigilantes," Weiss grumbled.

"Superheroes, investigative journalists, _whatever."_

Blake scowled. "None of this makes sense. We have to be missing something big."

"No."

She looked up, startled. Weiss was jabbing a finger at her. "Stop it. We're taking a break, remember?"

"But he just—"

"Ah-pup-pup! Break."

"I can do break stuff," Sun said, grinning. "Anyone in the mood for lunch?"

"...Fine," Blake sighed. "But we're talking about this later."

"Obviously." Weiss hesitated, turning a little pink around the ears. "Just, um..."

Blake furrowed her eyebrows. "What?"

"Do you know anywhere we could go, that... um... _you know who_ wouldn't set foot?"

"Uh, context please?" Sun said, raising his hand. "I have no idea who."

"That's... well, it's..." Weiss put a hand to her face. "My father is visiting. And he hasn't called in days which _might_ be a good sign, or possibly a really bad one. The last thing I want is to bump into him on the street."

Sun seemed a little stunned. "Oh. _Wow._ So... Jacques Schnee is within fifty miles of me right now?"

"If you're looking for pity," Blake grumbled, "go find someone who didn't shake his hand a week ago."

"Uh..."

"Do you know a place or not?" Weiss folded her arms and tried to look irritated rather than embarrassed. "I can pay. Consider it compensation for having to deal with father the past few days."

Sun was staring at nothing, mouth slightly open. Then he shook his head like a dog. "Nope. Not even going there. You didn't say anything. What's for lunch?"

"I know a few places," Blake told her.

They ended up in another café, this one much smaller, family-owned and nearly deserted at this time of day. It had a poster on the door proudly proclaiming it to be faunus friendly. There was an elderly man with curved tusks sitting in a booth near the door that spat out a mouthful of coffee when they walked in.

"Hi!" Sun said, with a little wave of his tail. "Can we have a table?"

"You're going to eat me out of my allowance, aren't you?" Weiss said, raising an eyebrow.

"You offered to pay!"

The atmosphere in this café was so different from the one Jacques had chosen that Blake had trouble processing it. Their server was a green-haired girl with a spotted tail that had squeaked and dropped a plate when she first saw them. But, as time passed, she seemed to warm to them. She chatted easily with Sun every time she brought food out, and even managed a few nervous smiles in Weiss' direction.

Despite all that, Weiss still seemed tense and preoccupied. Blake nudged her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" She winced. "It's just... seeing how people react to me is a bit unsettling."

"Is this about the waitress?" Blake's brow furrowed. "She was probably just surprised."

"I know." Weiss sighed. "It's still frustrating, realizing that she's terrified of me when I've never spoken to her before. Even with people that have never met him, I still feel like I'm... cleaning up his mess, mending bridges he's burned. And I always knew that was what I was going to be doing, especially once I inherit the company, but it's... unexpectedly nerve-wracking."

"Oh."

Weiss gave her an odd look. "What?"

Blake shrugged, glancing down at your food. "I haven't really thought about that. You inheriting everything, I mean."

"What, you forgot?" Weiss' expression was somewhere between incredulous and amused. "How is that even possible?"

"I didn't _forget._ It just... isn't the first thing that comes to mind."

A rare, unguarded smile dawned on Weiss' face. She let it stay for a moment, then turned abruptly back to her plate and polished off the last of her meal faster than she normally would have deemed polite.

It was almost like wandering around in a big house and realizing, all of a sudden, that she'd doubled back without noticing. She recognized the wallpaper, the strange clarity of her senses, the old tapestry on the wall and the way little motions began to leap out at her—a lock of hair brushing over the shoulder of Weiss' jacket, her hand sliding her coffee a few inches to the left. She'd been here before.

Swallowing hard, Blake groped for something solid and found her mug of cooling tea. Dread curled in her stomach, making the sandwich she'd eaten sit uneasily.

"Uh..." Sun leaned back in his chair and chuckled nervously. "...Check?"

He left them with a napkin, on which he'd scribbled a scroll id number inside a hastily drawn glass case. Beneath it, the words 'BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY' were printed in bold capitol letters.

Blake watched him go, wanting in equal parts to grab him and make him stay so that she and Weiss weren't alone together, and to run off in the opposite direction and never look back. In the end she did neither, choosing instead to drift absentmindedly back the way they'd come. Then, when they were passing the spot where they'd had the photographic incident, Weiss stopped dead.

"Blake! I think I see him."

"What?"

"The man who took the photo!"

"Don't look," Blake hissed, tensing up and forcing herself to keep her eyes on her partner. "Where was he?"

"Same place as before, the entrance to the alley."

"Okay." She took a deep breath, bracing herself. "Keep talking. Act natural."

"When has that phrase _ever_ preceded a sound decision?"

Blake laughed, then used that as an excuse to lean on Weiss' shoulder. She heard a sharp intake of breath and had to work hard to ignore the proximity. Her hair fell around her face as she leaned forward, hiding her from view. When she peered through it down the alley she couldn't see him at first, but the tips of his boots were just barely visible behind a dumpster.

"He's there," she whispered as she straightened up.

Weiss had gone completely rigid. "What was _that?"_

Blake turned her head away, pretending to be fascinated by a nearby lamppost. "I needed an excuse to lean over."

"That's—I don't—we could just move over there." She pointed towards a small shop across the street from the alleyway. "The sun is behind him, it's ideal for a reflection."

They wandered over on the pretense of wanting some—Blake got a better look at the sign and suppressed a groan. _Of course it had to be a pet store._ In the window, she could just make out a few mangy-looking dogs staring up at her. The interior of the shop was dim, so she mostly saw her own reflection beside Weiss' and, over their shoulders, the man in the alley. From this angle most of his body was visible. He was on his scroll, talking animatedly. Every now and then he'd glance their way, but Weiss was surprisingly good at pretending to fawn over the animals and he didn't seem to notice they were watching him.

After a minute, he pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket, scribbled something down, and stowed it away a bit haphazardly. He started to move further into the alley, only for the page to fall out and flutter to the ground. Weiss inhaled sharply.

"Don't go for it yet," Blake advised. "Wait a second."

"What if he realizes he dropped it?"

"If he sees us take it, they'll know we know. Maybe they'll even change things up so that the information is useless."

They waited several long, painstaking minutes before Blake crept up to the entrance of the alley and peeked inside. It was empty, but for the fallen scrap of paper. She picked it up with shaking hands and read, '3 am Sat 329 Woodacre.'

"Oh my god." Weiss stared at it. "Did that just...?"

Blake let out a shaky laugh, momentarily forgetting her anxiety. "We have a _lead!"_

* * *

"I am not putting that in my mouth."

Yang shot Russel a look. "Did you _have_ to phrase it like that?

"How long have we been partners? Of course I did!"

Nora rolled her eyes. Russel could be such a wuss sometimes. "It's just like a smoothie!"

That was a blatant lie. She'd tasted Ren's shakes before and knew full-well that they were _nothing_ like smoothies. But he'd given Sky one, and Sky had come to Russel with it, and now almost all of BRYN—Dove was being a square in the library—were sitting at a picnic table near the courtyard, trying to get one of them to drink it. Keyword _trying._

"I doubt this is going to work," Sky said, eyeing the thick green slime with intense skepticism. "There's no way someone invented the formula for unlocking a semblance and no one else noticed."

"But you'll always wonder!" Yang protested. "Twenty years from now, all you'll be able to think about is whether or not your life would have been different if you just took the plunge!"

Sky glared at her. He didn't normally do that—she seemed to scare him for some reason—but apparently the shake was a bridge too far. _"You_ drink it then."

"I already know mine, it wouldn't do anything!"

"Wait." Russel held up his hands. "Hold everything." His eyes gleamed. "What do you bet me I won't do it?" Sky turned his head and stared.

Yang put a hand to her chin. "How about... forty lien?"

Sky buried his face in his hands. Nora just cheered—she'd been wanting to see this happen to someone else ever since her first encounter with the green goo.

"Hmm." Russel lifted the glass to his lips, tilted his head back. The shake slid forward like a green tide, creeping up the glass towards his tongue. It was a fraction of a fraction of an inch away—"No deal." He put it back down.

Nora folded her arms and gave him a dirty look. "You suck, you know that?" He bent forward in a mock bow.

"Guys," Sky said, looking annoyed. "This isn't actually _helping."_

"Point." Russel clapped his hands together. "What should we do, then?"

"Um..."

They all exchanged looks. "Well..." Nora ventured. "Maybe if you climbed a tree?"

"Right. So we've got nothing." Russel sighed. "It would be really helpful if there was, like, a step-by-step guide we could use."

"Everyone's different," Yang said, shrugging helplessly. "I had to be angry, and a little bit protective. Nora... needed to be up a tree."

"I was also having a great time," Nora added. "Like... I was looking around and everything seemed really tiny." (The terrors of the world had shrank to pinpoints and the sky had opened up overhead, huge and menacing and growling like a Grimm, and for just a second she'd felt like she could take _anything_ it threw at her. Then it turned out lightning liked tall things.)

Sky frowned thoughtfully. "It's based on emotional states?"

"Maybe?" Yang shrugged. "No one really knows. Point is, the situation is always different. It's... not an easy thing to force."

Russel propped his chin in his hand. "I wonder what mine will be."

"It'd be cool if you could absorb fire," Nora said. "Then I could give Yang a boost and then she could give _you_ a boost."

"Eh." He made a so-so gesture with his hand. "I don't think that fits."

"Huh?"

"Well... you and Yang have similar semblances, right? Both absorb something—electricity or damage—and turn it into a strength. It feels like that might be... symbolic, or something."

Sky's eyes went wide. _"Oh._ Yeah, that makes sense."

"Symbolic of what?" Nora asked, curious."

"You're both the type to pop right back up after you get knocked down." Russel said. "Take the crap life gives you and hit back with it."

Yang and Nora both stared at him.

"What?"

"That's... weirdly poetic of you," Yang said. Nora nodded agreement. "And pretty spot-on."

"I can be insightful if I want!" Russel said defensively. "I bet you I get super-thinking, some serious film noir detective type shit. Like, I'll look around and see a ring on a coffee table and know how long ago the woman living in that house killed her husband."

"That sounds more like Sky," Nora decided. He blushed right down to his collarbone.

Russel stuck his tongue out at her. She was about to retaliate—maybe by trying to pour some of the shake onto it—when she noticed Dove running towards them.

"We have a lead," he declared, as soon as he was within earshot. Nora thought he'd missed a prime opportunity for slamming his hands down on their picnic table like in the movies.

"Wait, huh?" Sky did a double-take. "We do?"

Dove cocked his head to the side. "Don't take this the wrong way, but... what are you doing here?"

"We're trying to do semblance things," Russel said. "Now _finish your sentence!"_

Nora nodded eagerly—to her left, Yang was doing the same.

"Well." Dove coughed. "It's not exactly _our_ lead. I've been keeping tabs on the terminal search histories—"

"I have bleach, if you want," Russel offered.

"...That won't be necessary. _Anyway,_ I've been looking for anything to do with our anonymous research associate who beat us to all the best books. And this search wasn't obviously them, but it seemed strange so I looked into it."

"Strange how?" Sky asked. He'd perked up since Dove had started talking—Nora didn't get how anyone could be that excited by the most boring part of being secret vigilantes, but he was.

"It's a random street out in the middle of Vale." Dove pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out on the desk. "Someone looked up a map."

"And?" Yang frowned at it. "I'm guessing there's more to it than that."

"It's in one of those neighborhoods we marked as having a high proportion of faunus residents, really low population in general, _and—_ " he tapped a building near the middle of the map. "This place? It's a defunct construction site. Would have been a community outreach center, but there was a strike and the developer went under. I remember marking it in green, in case the White Fang have an appreciation for dark irony."

"So... you stole someone's lead," Russel summed up.

"...Yes."

"Sweet!"

"How do we know they're really onto something?" Yang asked.

Dove shrugged. "We don't, but the least we could do is look."

Sky stood up, grinning. "I'll go tell Raspberry."

Nora leapt up from her seat and onto the table. "Finally!" she groaned. "We're doing something more fun than walking around Vale!"

"Don't use the word fun, Nora," Dove sighed. "It scares me."

She just grinned—she could see him trying to hide a smile, because he was secretly the _worst ever_ at keeping a straight face. She should know—she was friends with the best, too.

* * *

329 Woodacre was an enormous brick of a building that was about halfway finished. It had all four walls, and a few weather-beaten signs declaring it an up-and-coming community center, but everything was bare cinderblock and there were scraps of metal littering the lot. They'd obviously been planning a second floor, because its skeletal outline was still visible. Around it was a mostly-empty lot that had been transformed into a maze by the bits and pieces of construction equipment and heaps of rotted two-by-fours and even whole pre-built segments of wall lying everywhere. Cranes hung with gigantic steel beams stood like sentinels, creaking ominously when the wind blew. Ruby thought it would make a great set for a horror movie.

"Well," Russel said cheerfully. "I don't know about you all, but I'm pretty sure there's been at least one murder here."

"Not helping," Dove told him.

Ruby craned her neck to try and see through one of the windows, but they were all boarded up. "Should we look around?" she wondered.

"Yes!" Nora rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

"No," Dove said, at almost exactly the same time.

Ruby glanced around, then stared for a moment at the broken-down construction site. On the one hand, Russel did have a point about the murder thing. On the other, if they left now they'd have _nothing._ "Vote?"

It ended up being five to two—with Sky and Dove against, and everyone else for. Even if she only counted the rest of BRYN as one vote (which would be unfair, but was still sometimes a useful test), going in still won. Pyrrha voiced what she had thought, that if they left now they would be stuck combing Vale the old fashioned way. Ren pointed out that this was exactly what they had been planning to do, only sooner. "Okay," Ruby said, nodding. "Let's do this."

They entered cautiously through the back door, and found themselves in a small, dingy-looking room. Maybe it was going to be an office—there was a hole in one wall about the size of an outlet, and someone had put a crate in one corner that might have eventually been replaced with a desk. All the walls were unpainted plaster, and the room smelled like dust. It was dim, with the only light coming from the door they'd just entered through. On the opposite wall there was a plain wooden door, left ajar.

Russel drew one of his daggers and fiddled with the handle. It began to glow cherry red, and sent eerie shadows dancing along the walls.

"You stole that Dust, didn't you," Dove said, sounding resigned.

"Call it a finder's fee." Russel shrugged and pushed through the doorway. They all followed in single file.

The next room was a massive open space, mostly square, with an extra space off to the side. There was a door there leading to the outside lot, as well as a pair of double doors at the far end. Half the ceiling was around fifteen feet high, and the other half hadn't been built yet. Through the gaping hole they could see a wide open sky, clouds drifting overhead. The walls underneath were covered in brown stains where years of rain had damaged them. Ruby could see that there were smaller rooms to the left and right of this main one, closed off by slap-dash walls. Some had doors, others yawned wide and dark. Her hand went to Crescent Rose, curling around the cool metal.

They began to move in a circle. Shadows hung thick in this part of the room, where the daylight didn't quite reach. Sky tripped over a stack of boxes, sending them clattering to the ground. Scraps of wood, sheets of plaster, metal cans full of nails, and power tools of all kinds went scattering across the floor, making a sound like a box of cymbals being tossed down a mountainside.

Ruby froze. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she waited. Sky was hyperventilating, and she had to prod him in the arm to calm him down enough that they could listen properly. Somewhere far away, water was dripping in a steady, slow rhythm. Her eyes flicked from doorway to doorway, waiting for someone to emerge from the shadows or for one of the doors to slam open. None did.

Eventually they could breathe again. Ren helped Sky shove all the construction equipment back in the boxes, and Pyrrha gathered up the nails with her semblance and floated them back into their cans. The search resumed. They checked every shadow, moving more crates out of the way and then stacking them back up. Every side-room was explored—most held more boxes, some were empty, and one had over a dozen rusty pipes sticking out of the concrete floor. There wasn't another soul in the building.

When they finally exited the last side-room, after opening up the last box and confirming that _no,_ there wasn't any Dust, ammunition, or guns inside, just a bunch of paint rollers, they all stood in the center of the large room. Dove let out a little laugh.

"What do you know. We really _did_ just scout around."

Yang sighed. "I want to say that was boring, but I think it would have been _less_ tense if someone had attacked us."

Russel nodded agreement. "I feel like I just watched a movie about a serial killer and a family locked in a creepy old mansion... but the plot twist was that the murderer's been dead forty years and the reason they kept hearing noises in the middle of the night was that they had mice."

"I'd watch that," Dove decided, "But that's beside the point. We should get out of here before someone _does_ try to kill us."

It was only once they were safely back on the streets of Vale that they spoke again. "I guess the lead is a bust," Nora said, kicking at a pebble as she walked.

"Not necessarily." Sky blushed when everyone looked at him. "Um, well, it's obviously not a usual base of operations. But if the other person looking for the White Fang thought it was important, they probably had a reason. Maybe it's a meeting place?"

Dove nodded slowly. "That would make sense. It would explain why there was nothing inside, and it's massively unlikely that anyone would notice a few shady individuals meeting there in the dead of night."

"Or in the middle of the day," Ren added. "We shouldn't assume the meeting would be at night."

Pyrrha frowned. "We don't have any idea what time that might be. Or if we're right about it being a meeting."

"Stakeouts?" Ren suggested. Everyone else winced, cringed, or groaned. Nora pulled the kind of face Ruby normally associated with a person trying Brussels sprouts for the first time.

"It won't be _that_ bad," Dove said with a sigh. "We can work in partner pairs so we'll be less bored. Besides, we'll only be doing an hour or so here and there, since we can't cover the place twenty-four-seven anyway."

Ruby slumped. Fighting Roman Torchwick, his lackeys, and now terrorists? _Sure._ Almost dying on a regular basis? She could do without that part, but it had turned out fine. Sitting still? _Really_ not one of her strong points.


	36. Tensile Testing [9]

Russel was going for a walk.

For most people that was nothing unusual, but when he'd announced his intentions his teammates had needed a depressing amount of convincing that he hadn't been pod-peopled somehow. So _maybe_ he wasn't a 'wander alone and brood' kind of guy, but he thought that clearing his head might help him make actual _progress_ instead of banging his head against the wall. Plus, he'd just had History and Grimm Studies back-to-back and needed to get rid of the excess energy before he popped.

He turned left at a crossroads and passed along the wide-open walkway outside Beacon, beneath artfully crafted iron lamps. They were unlit—it was mid-afternoon on a Wednesday and there was no point wasting Dust—but still beautiful.

 _I have to have a semblance._ He ran a hand along one of the lampposts, wondering what it would be like to be able to bend them with his mind. _No comparing yourself to Pyrrha,_ he scolded himself. That way lay madness.

It was as he was wandering down a less traveled pathway that he decided to take a short-cut through a flowerbed. He tripped, swore, and landed on his butt in the dirt, squishing some white flowers he wouldn't be able to name under pain of death.

"Mister Thrush."

"Gah!" He tried to stand, slipped, and ended up on his side. More flowers were crushed. His head lolled back, and he could see the figure of Professor Goodwitch silhouetted against the sun. Slowly, so that he didn't kill more innocent plants, he got to his feet and dusted dirt off his pants.

She gave him a sharp look. "Must you destroy everything you touch?"

"Uh... It was an accident?"

Goodwitch flicked her gaze upward for an instant, like she wanted to do a full eye-roll but thought it would be unprofessional. Then she waved her riding crop and the dirt and soil he'd disturbed with his flailing flew back into place. The flowers returned to the ground, though some of them had gone brown and droopy.

"What happened?" he asked, pointing to one.

She sniffed. "I can't repair living things. Those you uprooted will survive, but those you _crushed..."_

"Oh. Oops?"

"Why are you out here, Mister Thrush?"

He rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I don't have class for another half hour, so I wanted to... walk around? Think?"

"How... _introspective_ of you," she said, in tones that suggested he must think she was a complete idiot if he expected her to believe that.

"No, really! I mean, um... I'm trying to work out my semblance, and I thought this might help?"

She raised an eyebrow—less in an 'I call bullshit' sort of way, and more like she was tempted to laugh at him. "You are doing something very unlike yourself in order to unlock the power of your self. That seems contradictory."

"Oh." He kicked at the ground, careful to only scuff the cobblestones and to spare the flowers further harm. "How _should_ I do it, then?"

After a thoughtful hum, Goodwitch crooked a finger. "Walk with me."

Feeling apprehensive—he knew he was never, ever, not in a _million years_ going to live down BRYN's airship joyride, let alone everything that had happened since—he followed.

"The most simple answer," she said, as they meandered along the path, "is that you don't. It will reveal itself with time."

"Is that how you found yours? By accident?"

"A storm destroyed my home," she replied, matter-of-fact. "I repaired it. Stress of one kind or another often accompanies the discovery of a semblance, but not always."

Russel turned away from her to stare at the flowerbeds, which were now interspersed with young trees and wooden arches blanketed with vines. "Oh. So I just have to... wait?"

"Possibly. It's also possible that you will happen upon a situation that will awaken your semblance early—but you _won't_ do that by acting like someone else might, in your place."

"Okay, but... I've been acting like me my whole life, and nothing happened."

"Have you now? That's a rare trait."

"Huh?"

"Perhaps it would be useful to consider how others' semblances connect to their personalities? You might be able to guess at your own."

"Like how you always get stuck cleaning up messes?" He paused. "Uh, with all due respect."

"That ship has long since sailed, Mister Thrush, but I appreciate the sentiment." They passed over a wooden bridge and across a babbling brook Russel had never seen before. It turned out the professors knew the grounds—including the best out-of-the-way paths.

He considered his teammates. There was Dove—he glowed, got a power boost against the creatures of Grimm. It had a hint of self-righteousness to it, a judgment on what he was fighting, but it was also perfect for inspiring others through example, which... well, he _tried._ Yang's and Nora's he'd already linked to being beat down by the universe and popping back up for round two. There was Ruby, always in motion; Ren, a calming presence; Pyrrha, great power used with greater finesse.

"Okay," he said, after a moment. "I guess I see the connection."

"Now, what would you say about yourself? Who you are, why you fight?"

"Freedom."

Her head turned, and she gave him an appraising look. "Go on."

"...Well, this is how I can get away from all the things other people need me to be, and just... do what comes naturally. I'm good at fighting, and it's something I learned myself. _I_ bought the tools I needed, _I_ did all the practice and training, _I_ got into Beacon. It's mine, and I can do whatever I want with it."

Goodwitch regarded him silently. He ran back through what he'd said and winced. "Uh. I guess that's not super heroic."

"Not in the classical sense, no." They walked under an arch of tree branches hung with tiny crabapples. "I suppose I have to wonder whether you would risk your life to protect others, if that is your reasoning."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. She probably didn't want a top-of-the-head answer. "I think it depends," he decided.

"On what?"

"Whether or not my team is there." He grinned sheepishly. "I wouldn't get myself killed for someone I don't even know, but they totally would. I like to think I'd stick it out with them."

Russel risked a glance at Goodwitch. She looked thoughtful rather than angry. "The whole reason we're here is that heroes aren't born, Mister Thrush. Knowing your limits is invaluable."

"I guess?"

She actually _smiled_ at him. "Good luck with your semblance." Then she took a left turn and headed back towards Beacon. Russel just stood there, trying to process the fact that he'd had an entire conversation with Goodwitch without once destroying school property.

...Well, without _twice_ destroying school property. Some of the flowers were a lost cause.

Eventually he started walking again—but not back towards the school. It was nice out here, now that he'd actually taken the time to wander around. He hung a right and found himself weaving between lilac trees. It wasn't the best time for them, most of the flowers had already finished blooming and were curled up in tight purple balls, but he made a mental note to come back next spring.

It was hot out, but it wasn't a smothering kind of heat. He found himself bouncing up and down, craning his neck to look up through the canopy at a brilliant blue sky. On impulse, he broke out into a run. Before long he'd left the gardens behind and was leaping over roots and loose stones, plunging into a stretch of woods. Before long he reached the cliffs and sprinted a few feet from the edge, staring off into the sea of leaves.

For the first time in weeks, he thought about what he was leaving behind—the long shifts trying to prop up his mother's income, the school 'friends' who talked about movies he didn't have the time to see and games he didn't have the money to play, nights where he had to coach his siblings through math assignments and make the ungrateful little shits eat right and go to bed before he could finally sleep.

It was a floaty sort of feeling, one he'd almost forgotten about—he'd gotten so used to his new life that he didn't notice the absence anymore. He hurdled over a fallen tree, listening to the birds and smelling the sharp sting of sap and realizing that, if he wanted to, he could find someplace in Vale to stay until next year started, that his life was his.

Then he hit the ground again, pushed off to start running—and soared ten feet in the air. His whole body felt wonderfully light, like he was being buoyed up by a thousand invisible balloons. He drifted slowly back down.

"Huh." He bounced again, higher. His hair brushed against a canopy of leaves, his arms spread wide, almost as if he was flying. He twisted in midair, turning his jump into a languid flip. Something slipped, his full weight returned, and he came crashing to the ground with a muffled _thump._ His head cracked against a rock, and he let out a pained yelp.

 _Well,_ he thought, rubbing his temple. _At least no one saw that._

* * *

Embarrassingly enough, it took Pyrrha a full week to muster the nerve to talk to Sky. It didn't help that Russel kept making fun of her for chickening out every time he came within earshot of her when no one else was around. In her defense, there never seemed to be time—they were watching 329 Woodacre whenever they could, always in partner pairs. She'd had a lot of late-afternoon conversations with Ruby, which was nice, but hadn't seen Sky without one of their other teammates around.

This morning she'd asked Ruby about it, and her partner had suggested to the whole group that they switch partners for a change of pace. Now Pyrrha and Sky were crouching behind a rusted-out bulldozer at 329 Woodacre. They'd been there about twenty minutes, and she still hadn't said anything. He was busy looking as hyper-focused as he possibly could.

"It's quiet out here," she observed, desperate for some way to start a conversation. Maybe she could lead into the subject a bit more naturally?

Sky nodded, keeping his eyes trained on the building.

"Do you think we missed the meeting?"

He shrugged, turned his head a little way around, then snapped it back. "If we did, we might never know. I guess we just keep this up for a little while and go back to what we were doing before if nothing happens?"

"I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Yeah."

They watched for a while longer. A few teenagers, two girls with lion tails and a boy with a pair of triangular, reddish-brown ears, walked onto the construction site. Pyrrha tensed— _this could be it!_

The boy with the ears looked around hastily, then pulled a paper bag out of his jacket. On further inspection, it appeared to be some kind of alcohol. He passed it to the girl on his left, who took a swig, and they started taking turns. Sky ducked his head back down, leaned against the side of the bulldozer, and made a face. _"Teenagers."_

Pyrrha smothered a giggle with one hand. He suddenly sat up ramrod straight and went back to watching the group of friends, in case they'd pulled out Grimm masks in the half a second he wasn't paying attention.

"You don't have to do that," she said quietly.

He glanced around. "Huh?"

"...Nothing." Pyrrha could almost see Russel rolling his eyes at her.

One of the girls leaned her head on the other's shoulder and said something too quietly to hear. Then she slipped, fell off the cinderblock she'd been sitting on, and landed on the ground with her tail coiling behind her. Both of her friends started laughing uncontrollably. Pyrrha felt a flash of ridiculous envy.

Although... it _did_ give her an idea.

"When I was fourteen I tried to learn to cook," she said.

Sky stared at her, looking startled and a little panicked. "Um... good?"

"Not exactly. I fried an egg, but I left it in too long and it burned all the way through. Then I tried again, and I dropped the yolk on the carpet and stepped on it by accident."

He blinked a few times, then managed a confused grin.

Pyrrha thought back. "I fell out of a tree, too, when I was eleven. One of the branches was rotted and it snapped the moment I put my foot on it. I sprained my ankle and missed a tournament match the next day."

"You were in tournaments when you were eleven?" Sky asked.

"They weren't particularly rigorous, just a way for us to practice what we'd learned."

"Whoa."

Frustrated, Pyrrha blurted out, "I tripped over a cat."

"What?"

"There are a lot of strays in Mistral, and they aren't careful where they walk. I was sparring with my instructor, and when I was retreating one of them got underfoot and I fell. Only, we were near a staircase, and..." she trailed off.

Sky was staring at her, mouth slightly open. "Um... why are you telling me this?"

"You don't have to take me so seriously," Pyrrha said. "That is to say, I don't mind if—I wouldn't be angry if—" She stopped, took a breath. "I don't want you to take me so seriously."

His brow furrowed. "You... want to be laughed at?"

"Well, yes. Not in a malicious way, but... like Russel. His team teases him all the time."

"He's a hard guy to resist making fun of, I guess." Sky swallowed. "So, maybe this is a stupid question, but... why do you want to be laughed at?"

Pyrrha fiddled with the bracers on her arms. "I'm just a person. It's nice to be treated like someone _real,_ someone who could burn an egg or fall out of a tree or trip over a cat. Not just..."

"The Invincible Girl?"

She nodded.

He sat still for a moment, processing the idea. Somewhere behind him, the teenagers broke out into drunken giggling. "We could pretend they're laughing at you," he suggested.

"What for?" Pyrrha asked, smiling to show that she wasn't really offended.

"Pretending you can wear that much red and still be stealthy?"

"Don't let Ruby hear you say that."

He grinned. "Yeah, well. We're still better at it than Brine."

* * *

Water bottles. Spare Dust. First aid kit, containing rolls of gauze and triangular bandages and eye bandages, a sterilized needle and thread that Blake knew how to use and Weiss didn't, tweezers, other odds and ends. An extra rolled-up copy of the map they had printed out, showing Woodacre street and with 329 highlighted in red. Extra food, granola bars and sandwiches, in case they got stuck in Vale. Lien. It all went into a black canvas backpack they'd found in the city two days ago and bought for cheap. Weiss had to move things around to make them fit, pushing the food against one side of the bag so that she could cram the first aid kit down another inch and toss in a the water.

She was interrupted by a hand at her elbow and turned, startled. Blake was facing her, now, looking uncomfortable. "Do you have any Dust cartridges I could use?"

Weiss stared at her. "What? Why?"

"I could use it with my semblance."

She gaped at her partner for a second, then scowled. "Seriously?"

"If you don't, I can just—"

"Of _course_ I have Dust you could use. Why on Remnant didn't you ask until _just now?"_

Blake winced. "Well, to start with I didn't want to talk to you. Then we had that truce, and even afterwards... us not being enemies was so new, I didn't want to push it. After that I still wasn't comfortable with where it came from, but... we can't really afford to ignore a possible advantage, now."

With a sigh, Weiss extended her hand. "Give me a magazine and some casings. I'll empty it out and refill it."

"I can do it."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Suit yourself." She handed over a half-dozen vials. "Now that you've asked, you _will_ be using Dust in the tournament."

"I thought you might say that."

Weiss checked her scroll, then started fussing with the backpack again. "There's half an hour left before Grimm studies ends." Blake nodded understanding and busied herself filling cartridges with Dust.

The two of them were in the dorm. Jaune and Cardin were both in class. There would be questions, she was sure. Jaune would want to know what was wrong and why they'd skipped. The plan was to tell him they'd decided to take a nap in the comfort of the dorm rather than torturing their necks trying to do it in Port's class. It wasn't as if they were missing anything truly important, not when they had the textbook.

Weiss had to pause for a moment to rub at her temple. Father wouldn't see it that way. After their... disagreement at the café, he still hadn't contacted her. She wasn't sure what to make of that. Skipping class would certainly weigh whatever decision he might be making out of her favor, but... what choice did they have? If Jaune and Cardin walked in on them preparing for a trip to Vale, he might ask to come along, or pry into why exactly they were doing it. _Maybe_ they could come up with a lie, but they hadn't been able to think of any that would explain why they had a map to a rundown corner of residential Vale and enough Dust to pop an Ursa like a grape. In all likelihood, Port wouldn't notice anyway. Other students had cut his class before, and he hadn't said anything. They would be fine.

Another touch on her arm. Blake stepped up beside her, leaning over her shoulder to see inside the pack. "That looks good." Weiss nodded mutely. Most of her attention was suddenly tied up in making sure she didn't turn her head, because her partner was only a few inches away.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine," she said, wincing when it came out a lot more brusque than she'd intended. "Nervous, obviously."

Blake hummed agreement and went back to her weapon. Weiss took a moment to grip the sides of the pack and even out her breathing. _Of all times,_ she thought, _this had to come up now._ Inconvenient didn't even begin to cover it.

Weiss risked a glance over her shoulder. Blake was hunched over her desk, head tilted slightly to the side, ears perked straight up. She lifted a hand and rubbed at the back of her neck, rolling it from side to side. Her hair shifted, revealing the curve of one shoulder. Weiss turned sharply back around and stared at the backpack like it had personally offended her. Then she glanced at the clock. _Twenty minutes left._

She should really say something. This was a distraction, wasn't it? Well, _obviously,_ but would saying something actually help, or would they just _both_ be distracted?

The backpack was easier to focus on. She finally got it zipped up and elected to shove it under her bed, half-concealed behind a case of Dust but easy to pull out in a hurry without making much noise. What else needed to be done?

"Can you come here for a second?" Blake asked. Reluctantly, Weiss walked over and stood by her shoulder.

"What?"

"I'm not sure what this means." She pointed to the cap of the vial, where '.9mm' was stamped in bold black ink.

Weiss stared at her. "That's an industry standard, it's on every vial."

"I hardly ever use Dust," Blake said defensively. "And my sources aren't the kind that worry about industry standards."

"Right."

 _Stupid._ By now she ought to stop being so surprised by these things. "It means nine tenths of a millimeter. That's the average diameter of the individual grains. Coarser powder is less reactive, which means less power but more stability. Nine is... about average, maybe more on the finer side." It was the coarsest type she owned, the least likely to react badly to mishandling, and therefore the only one she would even dream of cramming into a pistol magazine designed to hold standard ammunition.

Apparently satisfied with that explanation, Blake went back to filling empty cartridges with Dust and loading them into a magazine. Weiss was left standing there with nothing to do—the backpack was filled, Myrtenaster had been prepared for hours now, and they had a plan already. She'd gone over it in her head more than a dozen times. They'd scouted 329 Woodacre as best they could, and found a way to get into Vale past curfew by smuggling on board one of the supply ships that brought in food and Dust. Bus routes had been researched, lien for tickets set aside. They were as ready as they were going to get.

She stayed where she was, watching Blake work. That turned out to be an abysmal idea. Weiss kept her eyes mostly trained on the magazine, but kept stealing glances, quick flicks of the eye that left her with brief snapshots—her partner rotating her ears towards a noise from outside, stretching an arm over her head, biting her bottom lip as she concentrated.

Her stomach flipped. She'd have to say _something,_ this was getting ridiculous. A glance at her scroll showed that they had fifteen minutes before Jaune and Cardin finished class.

What was she supposed to say? _I've been considering—_ no. _It has come to my attention—Perhaps you would be interested in—_ no! Why did it keep coming out like a business proposal?!

 _Twelve minutes._ She'd be as direct as possible. _I like you,_ maybe? She felt stupid just _thinking_ it. Childish. Asking to go out for coffee or something was the standard formula as far as she was aware, but that hardly made sense when they were about to risk their lives, and anyway Blake didn't like coffee. Usually. They'd both been drinking a lot of it out of necessity the past couple of weeks.

 _Eight minutes._ Nora had said being honest was a good idea. She'd been right before. She was good at this sort of thing, much better than Weiss had expected. In all likelihood this was good advice that she should follow. She just had to open her mouth and say... something.

 _Five minutes._ That was barely enough time to have a proper conversation, and there _definitely_ wouldn't be time later. It had to be now. Or never—that was sounding more inviting by the second.

No time to worry about perfect delivery. She just had to start with something, _anything._

"Um."

Blake looked up, one eyebrow raised. Weiss tried not to cringe—that wasn't exactly smooth, but at least she'd said something. Now she had to follow up, and it was a little easier to find words.

"I realize this is bad timing, but I just... wanted to say something."

"Yes?"

"Well... We've gotten a lot closer since the beginning of the year."

The corners of Blake's mouth twitched. "Not a very high bar."

Weiss flushed. "No. But, I thought... I wouldn't be opposed to increasing that closeness. Outside of a partnership, that is."

It took a second for Blake to get it, but when she did the little half-smile vanished. Her eyes went wide. "Oh."

 _I'm going to find Nora,_ Weiss thought, _and I'm going to freeze her to the ceiling._

Then, Blake forced a smile. "Isn't this kind of thing usually saved for a climactic moment? Like right before a life-or-death fight?"

"That would be idiotic," Weiss pointed out. "I refuse to die because I decided personal feelings were more important than basic safety. And... you're trying to change the subject."

Blake winced and dropped her gaze. "Sorry."

"...Say something?"

For a moment, it looked like Blake was trying to put together a sentence. She kept opening her mouth, then looking around the room as if desperate for something to smash through the walls and try to kill them—anything to put this off for a little longer.

Weiss folded her arms in front of her. "If it's a no, you can just say so." It stung, quite a bit more than she'd expected, but she could handle that.

Blake sighed. "It would be easier if it was just a no."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Weiss put a hand on her hip. Honestly, was it so difficult to give a straight answer?

"I like you too." Blake stared fixedly at the floor. "But I can't—it's a mess on my end. I don't know if I can deal with that again." Again? What _—oh._

"You mean Adam."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"...Right."

Blake fidgeted a little. "I'm still trying to figure things out. Could... could we just deal with it later?"

"Of course." Weiss managed to smirk. "And I forbid you from having any kind of romantic revelation in the middle of the mission."

The ghost of a smile. "That's fair."

They stood in silence for a moment. "Well," Weiss said, around when it started getting unbearable. "This is... inconveniently timed."

"Very."

"Do you think—"

She was cut off mid-sentence when the door clicked. Blake sat bolt upright, grabbed the magazine case she'd just finished, and slid it under her bed just as Jaune walked in with Cardin right behind him.

"Okay," he said, the instant he was inside. "I don't want to be intervention guy, but I'm starting to worry you've both been replaced by lookalikes so _please,_ throw me a bone here." Cardin rolled his eyes, then moved around their leader and face-planted on his bed. He didn't even make a snide remark. Weiss could suddenly relate to Jaune's concerns about doppelgangers.

"We're okay," Blake insisted.

Jaune put a hand to his face. "Just... no. Neither of you have ever skipped a class before, and now is a _weird_ time to start. What's going on?" Weiss remembered, of all things, a piece of insight from Father—never lie about the obvious. It only makes you look foolish and duplicitous.

"How about we make a deal?" she asked. Jaune gave her a suspicious look.

"I'm not letting you bribe me with notes." A pause. "I mean, I totally would for anything else, but this is important."

"Not that kind of deal." Weiss crossed her arms. "One more day. Just until tomorrow afternoon. Give us that long, and we'll each sleep for at least ten hours, then spend the next morning catching up on homework. Okay?"

He rubbed his neck. "...Okay, fine. Deal."

Weiss hoped he wouldn't come to regret that.


	37. Tensile Testing [10]

"I want a shirt for my birthday," Russel said, about thirty-five minutes into their hour-long stakeout. Yang chuckled. She'd figured out early on that Ruby and Dove were giving BRYN the times it was least likely for something to happen, which was probably for the best—they were terrible at it. Her partner hadn't even glanced at the warehouse in the past five minutes. He was too busy lying flat on his belly and doing little push-up motions that, thanks to his semblance, sent him drifting two feet up in the air.

"Okay," she decided. "I'll bite. Why do you want a shirt?"

"Not just any shirt." He pushed off with his hands, then curled his legs against his chest and did a front-flip. "A giant oversized t-shirt. And I want it to say, 'Fuck you, gravity' in the biggest, boldest block letters you can find."

Yang snorted. "Sure. I'll see what I can do."

"It should be hot pink, with fluorescent orange letters outlined in green."

She stared at him. "I thought you wanted to stick it to gravity, not my eyes."

Russel did another little hop. "I can multitask." She privately disagreed.

Yang shot a cursory glance at the warehouse. Still deserted. She wasn't surprised, considering it was four in the afternoon on a Friday. Most people had better things to do than hang around empty construction sites. She turned back to Russel. He was floating on his back, using his heels and elbows to bounce himself away from the ground. "I think I see your point," she decided. "About semblances reflecting people's personalities."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're full of hot air."

"Ooh." He did a back-flip and landed on his elbows, with his feet splayed out in the air behind him. They drifted slowly down even as she watched, like balloons a month after the party. "I detect jealousy."

"Nora's probably jealous," Yang said, grinning.

He gave her a look like he was trying to guess the joke. "Why's that?"

"No better way to get struck by lightning."

Russel mulled that over for a moment, then let go of his semblance and fell back to earth with a hefty _thump._ "Well. I'll never look at a thunderstorm the same way again."

"We _live_ with a thunderstorm," Yang said, with no small amount of pride.

"True."

"Seriously, though." She grinned at him. "Congratulations!"

Russel did another flip. "This is already my favorite thing ever."

She snickered. "At the Vytal festival, we should tie you to a bundle of balloons and carry you around with a string around your ankle."

He hummed thoughtfully. "Nah. I need to be able to visit the stalls. Too much good food to waste the day fifteen feet in the air."

"Spoken like a guy who somehow already got bored of being almost weightless."

Russel held a finger in the air and waggled it. "Nope! It's not just a change of weight, it's a change of _density._ Apparently. That's what Dove said, anyway. Still not sure what the difference is supposed to be, but whatever."

Yang furrowed her brow. "I think it's the reason a block of wood that weighs a pound floats, but a rock that weighs an ounce sinks."

"If you physics at me," Russel said, "I swear I'm going to—"

"Russ, shut up."

He made an affronted noise. "Hey, I'm just saying—" Yang risked covering his mouth.

"I see someone," she hissed, then drew her hand back before he could lick it. He rolled his eyes.

"It's probably a drunk teenager," he whispered. "Remember Sky and Pyrrha saw like three? And then Dove told me there was a kid with a suspicious 'water' bottle just yesterday—"

"Russ."

He shut up and crouched down next to her. She had found a hole in the wooden board they were hiding behind, where there had been a knot in the tree it had been cut from. He had to make do with squinting through a crack between two planks. The place still seemed empty, but she'd noticed a shadow moving near the other end of the lot. As they watched, the shadow grew larger and she caught a flash of red through a doorway.

"I still say it's a drunk teenager," Russel whispered.

She shot him a _look._ "Well, _yeah,_ but we still have to make sure, right?"

The figure came closer. Teenager sort of fit—he didn't look younger than twenty, but he couldn't have been much older, either. He definitely wasn't drunk. He walked purposefully, his head scanning back and forth. His clothing was casual, dark jeans and a blood-red sweatshirt, but she had a feeling he wasn't used to it—he moved with grand, sweeping gestures, like he was used to having more presence than his current outfit afforded him. Spiky red hair stood up from his forehead, almost concealing a pair of curved horns. Any second now, he would sit down and pull out a beer. Any second.

He didn't. He kept coming closer, craning his neck to take in everything around him. Like he was surveying the property. He was thirty feet away, then twenty. Russel shot her a desperate, panicked look. She forced a grin. It would be fine—he was still probably just some guy wanting a place to hang around where no one would see him. Sure, he gave off a creepy vibe, but as far as she could tell he wasn't armed.

The man took another step, and Yang ducked away from the hole in the board, holding her breath. Another crunch of his boots on gravel, and he stopped. For several long seconds, she heard nothing. She risked another peek. His back was to her, now. When he took a few steps away, she saw why—someone else had come out of the half-completed building, another man with dark, floppy ears atop his head and round spectacles.

"What are you doing here?" the man in red asked. Spectacles shifted nervously. His reply was too quiet for them to hear.

"I don't care," Red snapped. "Postpone it until tomorrow."

"...going to want to see you, and—"

"Tomorrow."

Spectacles bowed his head and said something else Yang didn't catch. His tone seemed less deferent now, more sympathetic. Red rubbed at his temple. "...don't know if I can ... going to _see_ her..."

Hesitantly, Spectacles clapped Red on the shoulder. Then the pair of them turned around and walked back towards the building. It was only after they'd been gone for almost ten minutes that Yang dared to relax.

"Holy shit," Russel whispered, wide-eyed. "That guy looked intense."

Yang smothered a nervous laugh into her hand. "Yeah, no kidding."

"Do you think that's... uh, what we've been waiting for?"

She frowned. "Not sure. He said something about 'seeing her,' so maybe he's just nervous about a first date or something."

"Okay," Russel said, sounding skeptical. "But... suspicious location." He started ticking off points on his fingers. "Terrifying guy—"

"Who acts like he's used to having a cape to flourish," Yang added.

"Those whose sisters live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Russel put up another finger anyway. "Anyway, he's having a cryptic talk with someone at said suspicious location, both are faunus, and they're making references to postponing everything until tomorrow. _And!"_ His eyes gleamed with excitement. "You know who _she_ might be?"

Yang got it. "Shoulder."

Russel grinned. "I think something's happening tonight."

"Yeah." Yang mirrored his expression. "Me too. Let's go back, we can talk to Ruby and Dove and set something up."

"Oh boy." Russel suddenly looked a lot more nervous. "This is gonna lead to breaking curfew, isn't it?"

"Well, _something's_ happening tonight. If it does turn out to be a date we can all just go home."

"Damn it." Russel heaved a sigh, then got to his feet and started dusting himself off. "Goodwitch was just starting to hate me a little less."

* * *

"How many?"

The manager gazed at them with dull, disinterested eyes. He didn't bother to wonder why eight teenagers all needed to stay in the shady part of Vale for a night. In Ren's experience, every town of sufficient size had at least one ratty motel like this one, that didn't ask questions so long as there was enough lien.

"Uh..." Ruby glanced around. "Do you have... four rooms with two twins?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Two doubles," he said. "Two with queens."

"Um... me and Yang can share."

"So can we," Nora said, patting Ren on the shoulder. He nodded.

The manager shrugged. "That'll be one-forty."

Ruby glanced at Sky. "About eighteen lien each," he supplied. Russel's expression got slightly pained.

"Okay."

Four keys were placed on the desk—three of them were on the second floor, one on the third. "Welcome to Hanover Motel," the manager told them.

The third-floor room turned out to be a pair of singles, which was soon claimed by Russel. He'd have it to himself for the next two hours—Nora had jumped on first watch the second they'd decided to keep an eye on the place the whole night. That would leave Ren alone in their room for a while, too.

Or, as it turned out, not. Pyrrha elected to hang around in Yang and Ruby's room, which left Sky and Ren in the last one. There was a stain of mysterious origin on one wall, a shaggy grey-brown carpet, and a complimentary mint on each pillow that neither of them were willing to touch.

Sky flopped down on the bed nearest the wall and heaved a sigh. "We're going to die if Goodwitch finds out about this."

Ren winced. He was not looking forward to tonight, but at least they didn't have class in the morning. "I believe we'll be allowed to do this next year," he said, leaning against the wall by the door. "Only first-years have curfew over the weekend."

"Part of me thinks that'll be fun." Sky put both hands under his head. "Another part is wary of any excuse to do _more_ of this crazy stuff."

"You get used to it," Ren assured him. "I'm not sure what I'd do with myself if Nora wasn't always dragging me into adventure."

Sky nodded. "I think I know what you mean. I feel... better, I guess, knowing I _can_ do something like this."

Ren hummed agreement. They were both silent for a while after that—Ren found it quite comfortable, but Sky normally wouldn't. He glanced over at his partner and frowned. "Are you alright?"

"Huh?" Sky looked a little guilty. "Yeah. All good."

Defaulting to his experience with Nora, Ren just looked at him for a moment, letting his skepticism show on his face. Sky caved. "Okay, okay. Not great."

"What is it?"

He huffed out a sigh and rolled onto his side. "Russel found his semblance."

"I noticed." Russel had been bouncing up and down all the way to the motel, and before that on their way into Vale, and probably all the way from 329 Woodacre to the dorm, if Yang's amusement was any indication.

"I still can't do anything."

Ah. Ren glanced around the room, looking for inspiration and finding none. He imagined Nora telling him the same thing. It was a bizarre mental image, but helpful all the same. "Everyone will find their semblance eventually," he said. "I know it's difficult to be patient, but you've been improving immensely with Ruby teaching you. You don't need a semblance to be a skilled fighter."

Sky groaned. "But it's just... there's _nothing!_ Not even a hint."

Ren was floundering for a similar experience to draw on. He'd discovered his so early in life, he barely even remembered what it was like _not_ having it. "From what I hear, Jaune found his without any warning beforehand."

He wasn't even sure Sky was listening. "And what if when I do find it, it's completely useless?"

"No semblance is useless. Some are powerful but only work in specific circumstances—Nora can do amazing things with electricity, but not everyone uses it, and no one tries to hurt her with it twice. Some can be used anywhere but have very little combat application, much like mine. Others are strong, can be used anywhere, but come with a drawback. Yang needs to take risks and lose aura before hers can activate."

"I bet I get, like... color-swapping. It lets me point to a door and tell it to turn green."

Ren tried to think of possible applications for that. "You could turn the Grimm pink," he suggested.

Sky huffed out a laugh. "Then I'd get killed by silly-looking monsters instead of creatures of death and darkness. I'm not sure if that's better."

"Nora would say that anything is better pink."

"Yeah, she would."

Ren's scroll vibrated in a syncopated rhythm he'd set for messages from Nora. He pulled it out of his pocket and took a look, then chuckled.

boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooored

"Hey, Ren?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you teach me to meditate?"

Ren blinked. "Of course. Though... I am curious as to why you ask."

Sky shrugged and flopped onto his stomach. "Russel and I tried it. I'm pretty sure we were doing it wrong."

Ren glanced at the bed opposite Sky's. Pyrrha _probably_ wouldn't mind, but... "Do you mind if I sit next to you?"

"Nope."

Sky folded his legs in the lotus position, to which Ren raised an eyebrow.

"Is this right?" He tried to tug one foot up further, then winced.

Ren smiled. "It's important that you're comfortable. You don't need to sit that way if you don't want to. You can tuck one leg under the other, like this—" he demonstrated. Sky tried it, frowned, then returned to the lotus.

"This feels better."

"Good. Now sit up straight and close your eyes."

"Do I need to..." he trailed off and gestured with his hands.

"You can lay them in your lap, or on your legs. Anywhere you're comfortable."

"Oh."

They were both silent for a moment. Then Sky said, "Are you sure this is right?"

Ren smiled. "It's meant to help you relax. As long as you feel relaxed, you're doing fine." He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then released it. He hadn't been keeping up with the practice as much as he'd like to, lately. It was nice. "Try to breathe through your nose. I often start by focusing on each of my senses in turn—everything I can hear, taste, feel, and smell. Then I hold all of them in my mind at once."

He waited a while, until Sky's breathing grew deep and slow. "I'm not sure how to go about unlocking a semblance like this," he admitted. "But I would suggest thinking about who you are, and how that might be represented by your aura. That's what Russel says he did."

Sky nodded. He seemed reluctant to speak out loud. His expression was relaxed, his shoulders back, his hands curled in his lap. Ren spent a long time that way, closing his eyes and ignoring the small clock on the wall. His surroundings faded, and he imagined himself underwater, sinking endlessly downwards, weightless.

When he opened his eyes again, Sky was still in the same position, but there was a small crease at his brow. Ren cleared his throat. His partner broke out of his thoughts and looked at him.

"It didn't work," he said, frowning.

"It might not have unlocked your semblance, but you _do_ seem less anxious."

Sky managed a little grin. "Yeah, I think I am. That was pretty nice."

"We should do this more often," Ren decided. "If you would like to, of course."

"...Yeah." Sky's smile widened.

* * *

Cardin woke up groggily, wondering why he was awake when he couldn't hear his alarm. The room was silent—almost eerily so. He lay still, reluctant to get up even to check the time, and waited to fall back to sleep.

Something slid across the floor. There was a whispered, "Quiet."

He was on his stomach, his head tilted towards the room. Cracking one eye open, he found that he could just barely make out two silhouettes moving around on the floor—Weiss and Blake. He blinked, lifted his head an inch, readying himself to snap at them to shut up and go to bed already. But something about the way they were acting bothered him, and he lay back and pretended to be asleep. He stayed that way a long moment, listening intently. There was a soft whooshing sound, and then nothing. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again and saw that the window was open, and the two girls were gone.

 _Not my problem,_ he thought, rolling over onto his other side. He'd just go back to sleep. Whatever trouble they got themselves into to was on them.

"Fuck," Cardin mumbled. He got up and crossed to the window. He could see them in the courtyard, looking around furtively. Blake was wearing a backpack over one shoulder. Her head turned in his direction, and he ducked back behind the wall. Then he nudged Jaune hard in the side.

"Mm, wha?"

"Get up."

His partner's eyes fluttered open, one gummed up with sleep and the other just a little wider and more alert. "Huh? What's going on?"

"They just left," Cardin said, gesturing at the other two empty beds. Jaune sat bolt upright.

"Okay," he said, rubbing at his temple. "Okay. You know what? Screw this."

He stumbled out of bed, stripped out of his onesie, and started pulling on his jeans. "What the hell are you doing?" Cardin demanded.

"I didn't want to do this!" Jaune said, wild-eyed. "I figured hey, as long as they're okay, it's up to them if they want to have some weird, secretive side-project. But screw this. I'm going after them."

Cardin groaned. "Why? It's not our problem if they want to wander around in the middle of the night."

"It kind of is." Jaune heaved a sigh. "Look, it'll be fine. We'll just make sure they aren't going into the Emerald Forest or anything like that, and if they stop at the library we can turn right around and go back to bed."

"Why the hell would they go to the library at—" Cardin checked the digital clock on Weiss' desk. "one-thirty in the morning?"

Jaune grabbed his sword belt and buckled it on, them fumbled for his scroll. "No idea. That's why I want to make sure."

Cardin only had his armor halfway-on when Jaune ducked out the window. "Hey!" He stumbled after him, steadying himself on the sill with one hand and tightening straps with the other. His partner was scaling down the wall, his tongue poking out, clambering from window to window. Halfway down, his foot slipped and he fell the rest of the way with a yelp and a _thump._

In the hush that followed, Cardin stared out into the courtyard. He couldn't see any sign of the other two. Had they heard? Then, just as he was about to suggest going back to bed since there wasn't any sign of their teammates anyway, he caught a glimpse of Weiss in the distance. He managed to fold himself up enough that he could fit through the window and climbed down more carefully than Jaune had.

"Where'd they go?" Jaune asked, looking around frantically. He still had bed-head, his clothing was in complete disarray, and there were grass stains on his knees. Not exactly the knight in shining armor. Cardin sighed and pointed.

If it were just Blake, they never could have followed. She was the next best thing to invisible in the dead of night, with clouds mostly obscuring the moon. Even knowing where Weiss was and guessing that her partner would be next to her, it was usually only in little glimpses of motion that Cardin could track her. As it was they could follow fairly far behind, crouching whenever they could behind hedges or around the corners of buildings, watching for the telltale flash of white. And, well, maybe Jaune had been joking when he mentioned the Emerald forest, but they seemed to be headed that way.

"The hell?" Cardin muttered, when they finally reached the cliffs—and, more specifically, the airfield. There was a cargo ship sitting there, idling. The pilot was leaning against its side. As they crept closer, a man came out from inside of the ship and clapped her on the shoulder.

"Last one," he said cheerfully.

The woman groaned and swatted at him. "Shut up. I hate you."

"Rude."

She started walking around the ship, and Cardin and Jaune both dove for cover behind a hedge. They couldn't even see where Weiss and Blake had gone. The woman stood up and stretched. "If he's going to insist on ordering this much food," she grumbled, "the least the old man can do is shell out for two cargo ships."

Her partner shrugged. "More students nowadays. Back when I started we only had to do a couple runs." He stepped forward and rolled up a corrugated metal door in the back of the ship, revealing heaps upon heaps of crates. "Ferry didn't run as late, either," he added. "We were done by nine." The pair of them started hauling boxes out onto the tarmac. Then they disappeared for a while, as they moved everything from where it was sitting out in the open to a small building near the edge of the airfield Cardin had never before realized was a storage facility.

Then, like a ghost and its shadow, Weiss and Blake darted in past the door and disappeared. Cardin turned to stare incredulously at Jaune.

He was biting his lip, sizing up the airship. "You can't be serious," Cardin said flatly. "They're obviously sneaking into Vale. Mystery solved. Let's go back to bed."

"We could take the ferry back before classes started," Jaune insisted. "I just... every time they do this, one of them gets hurt. I want to make sure we're around to help."

Cardin rolled his eyes skyward. "You know what? Sure... _if_ you can figure out somewhere else to hide on board that thing." He smirked, satisfied that he'd won the argument.

But it turned out that Jaune could, in fact, find another place to hide. The door to the cockpit was unlocked—Cardin assumed that ships carrying boxes of food must have worse security than those that carried Dust. Either that, or he'd just figured out why the SDC was losing so much product. They both had to cram themselves into a small room between the cockpit and the storage area, which contained a pair of bunk beds and very little else. Probably for sleeping in shifts on longer deliveries.

"Here's hoping neither of them wants a nap," Jaune whispered. Cardin scowled at him.

"If we get caught," he decided, "I'm blaming you."

They didn't. At least, not until they touched down in Vale, because Jaune's brilliant plan didn't include what they were supposed to do when they were _leaving_ the transport–they'd have to pass right between the two pilots. They did manage to peer out through a porthole and catch a glimpse of Weiss and Blake heading west, which bought them time to think.

In the end Jaune grabbed the sheet off one of the beds, held it out in front of him, and charged into the cockpit. They dove out of the side door while the two adults were still struggling with the fabric, then fled in the same general direction that Blake and Weiss had gone.

They caught up to them again a few minutes later, when Jaune happened to glance to his right and notice Weiss moving parallel to them. Just as they got back into the habit of skulking along a few blocks behind them, the girls both stopped. It took a while, but a bus showed up and carried them off.

 _280 West_ was lit up in bright LED's on the back of the bus. Cardin swore.

"They have bus routes," Jaune said, sounding almost awestruck. "How long have they been planning this?"

"Let's just find someplace to crash," Cardin grumbled. "We lost them."

Jaune shook his head no, and they waited around for over half an hour. It was still summer, but fall was starting to creep in and it was the middle of the night, so the two of them were shivering by the time the next _280 West_ bus arrived. They got on, sat together near the middle, and each stared out one window to look for signs of their teammates.

It was Cardin that noticed they had turned around. When he recognized the same cheap movie theater sign they'd passed on their way down, he reached over and nudged Jaune, who hit the stop button. They blundered back out into the night. The sky was dark, with only a few stars bright enough to escape being washed out by the city lights. He and Jaune both stood there for a moment, spinning in a slow circle.

"Crap," Jaune said.

"Let's _go,"_ Cardin scuffed one boot against the ground. "We can probably find someplace to sleep for a few hours if we start looking now."

"Not yet."

"Jaune, it's..." Cardin checked his scroll. "Fuck. It's past three. Give it a rest, they're probably just shacking up in a motel somewhere."

"Why?! Weiss' dad thinks they're doing that anyway, there'd be no point hiding it." He groaned and ran a hand through his hair. "I have a bad feeling, okay?"

"Me too. It's called sleep deprivation."

 _"Cardin."_ Jaune shot him a pleading look. "Come on. Just a little longer."

"For the love of—fine. But I'm skipping History tomorrow." He absolutely _refused_ to go to class with less than three hours of sleep.

They decided to keep walking west, since that was the direction the other two had been going last time they checked. The buildings quickly deteriorated. Cardin glanced around, feeling uneasy. Most of the people in this area were faunus, and all of them were scruffy and had a hungry look in their eyes. They passed street signs as they went— _Fletcher, Barnard, Woodacre, York._

Cardin was halfway across York, mid-step, when he heard it—a scream, short and sharp, coming from somewhere behind them. He and Jaune both froze, looking at each other. His partner's face had gone paper-white, dyed a dirty orange on one side where the light of a dim streetlamp fell across it. As one, they turned around and broke into a dead sprint.


	38. Tensile Testing [11]

Light pooled in dingy orange puddles on the asphalt. The air was crisp and cool, but the smell of coming autumn was undercut by the stench of the city. Clouds flitted intermittently across the moon, interspersing periods of silvery light with deep shadows that were broken only by the feeble lighting of the industrial side of Vale.

Stakeouts definitely lost their atmosphere when performed during the day. And, in Sky's humble opinion, they were much better _without_ atmosphere. He was cold, for one—he and Ren had been sitting still for over an hour, huddled behind a half-wall that was probably supposed to have been built up into a shack for storing tennis rackets and the like. It was nearly three in the morning, and every time he heard the slightest noise his entire body went on high alert. Unlike the last time they'd been out here, there was no room for light conversation. They weren't just hoping something might happen, they were _expecting_ it. And the later it got, the more it felt like whatever it was would happen _soon._ He shivered.

Ren broke the silence for the first time in a long while to whisper, "It's alright. The others are only a few minutes away."

Sky nodded jerkily. It wasn't much comfort. He craned his neck upward, to where the silhouettes of cranes cast criss-crossing cobwebs across the night sky. There weren't many stars to be seen. Too much cloud cover and light pollution.

Just as he was settling back into a mostly-relaxed position, he heard a slight scuff, like that of a boot against gravel. He froze. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Ren had risen into a half-crouch, keeping his head well below the wall. Sky made sure to poke his head around the side to try and look—the site was lit up by a nearby streetlight, and he might be spotted if he didn't keep in the shadows. For a long while, he couldn't see anything.

Then, two figures came into view. He had braced himself for the man Yang and Russel had described, tall and intimidating, but these two were shorter. It was impossible to see them properly, they were keeping out of the light, but... a glint of metal here, a flash of white there... they seemed _familiar._ Finally they darted through a patch of light, their heads turning to survey the area. He recognized them.

For a second, he was struck completely dumb. He turned to Ren, who was giving him a puzzled look. "Weiss and Blake!" he mouthed. His partner's eyes went wide. On impulse, Sky stood most of the way up and opened his mouth to call out to them, but they were already gone. Where—

Without warning, a metal shutter slammed down across the nearest entrance to the warehouse. At almost the same time, a voice behind them called out, "Hey!"

He whirled around, then yelped. A teenager was standing behind them, his shoulders back and his arms crossed, apparently perfectly at ease. Sky's fingertips tingled and twitched at the sight of him.

"You're Junior's thug," Ren said. He was edging back towards the building, casting glances over his shoulder as he went. The other two were probably inside, if they could just join up with them...

The guy made a so-so gesture with his hand. "Yeah, not so much." Without warning he kicked his left leg out. A gun went off, and Sky threw himself to the ground, covering his head with his arms. Ren grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him upright. He stumbled, then squeaked and ducked when another bullet whizzed past his ear. The thug was circling around, and in a few dozen paces he cut them off from the warehouse entirely.

"Please, give me a chase." He grinned crookedly. "I've been so bored. No one _decent_ to talk to except myself." His eyes glittered, as if he was laughing at his own private joke.

"Y-you knew we were here?" Sky stammered. The guy snorted.

"Nah. If I had, I would've gotten rid of you before we had company." He leapt forward, lashing out with both feet. Arcs of energy blasted out from the soles of his boots, curving in the air and striking Sky's and Ren's chests. They were bowled over, crashing into a stack of wooden planks and landing in a hail of splinters.

The pair of them scrambled to their feet and dove behind a dumpster, buying themselves precious seconds. "We need to go," Ren whispered urgently. "Get away so we can call the others." He pulled Sky sideways to avoid a hail of bullets as the thug circled around their cover. "We fought him before, he's—" Another shot of energy crashed into his shoulder and he stumbled. Sky caught him by the arm and steadied him, and the pair of them fled towards the north end of the construction site.

Sky risked a glance over his shoulder just as their pursuer vaulted over a heap of cinderblocks and, as he was in midair, kicked out with both legs and launched another salvo of those energy bolts. He tried to dodge them, but they just followed his motion and struck him in the back. Ren faltered mid-stride, then skidded to a halt. "Go," he said, giving Sky a push. "Call the others."

"But—"

"Now!"

He ran, tearing his scroll free of his pocket as he went. He weaved between rusted excavation equipment and the rusted shell of a bulldozer that looked to have broken down halfway through the project. The guy chasing them swore, but Ren stepped in his way and struck him hard in the jaw with one of his guns, and his attention was diverted.

Sky made it about twenty feet before he ducked behind a pile of two-by-fours and started scrolling through his contacts. But before he could call anyone, he went still. It felt as though something many-legged was crawling under the skin on his back. He turned around. For an instant he thought he caught a glimpse of red eyes, but there was no one there.

His breathing was coming in shallow rasps, now. He jabbed furiously at his scroll, selecting the first person he saw who was in that motel. It ended up being Pyrrha.

"Hmm?" she sounded groggy.

"Come now," he hissed. "Call Goodwitch and come help!" She started to say something, but he hung up and shoved the scroll in his pocket, ignoring when it began to vibrate. He glanced about frantically, before his gaze settled on one of the cranes. There was a set of nine I-beams hanging from it, bound together with steel cable.

 _Momentum,_ he thought, and started running. He kept to the shadows, not wanting to waste the chance Ren had bought him. In the distance he could hear gunshots, and every time they went silent for an instant his heart felt like it was about to stop. Then he was at the foot of the crane, and he hurled himself at it like a man possessed. He scraped his hands twice trying to get a grip on the lattice of metal bars that made up the body of the machine, and from then on he was climbing hand-over-hand like it was a ladder. He didn't look down.

Halfway up, he heard a scream. It wasn't Ren— _Weiss or Blake?_ His foot slipped and suddenly he was hanging by both hands, his whole body thrumming with the frantic beating of his heart. Then he swallowed, pulled himself up, and kept climbing.

His arms were shaking by the time he reached the load the crane was carrying. His whole body was shaking, actually, trembling like a tray of Jell-O. He unfolded his halberd from its place on his back—he hadn't had the second it took until just now, and anyway he'd been too distracted with running to think of it. Then he poked his head out over the edge of the beams, his stomach lurching when they swung with the shifting of his weight. The ground was so far away, it might as well have been another world, inaccessible. His head swam.

Ren and his opponent looked like tiny dolls from here. Even as Sky watched, the thug kicked his partner in the chest and sent him crashing back into the dust. They were only fifteen feet away from the spot directly below him. Too far.

Clamping his halberd in his teeth, Sky pulled out his scroll again, ignored the missed message from Pyrrha, and sent Ren a text—just the letters he mashed with one finger before hammering on the send button. Far below, his partner twitched. Then he looked around. He blocked a kick from his attacker. And then, finally, he looked up. Their eyes met.

Ren stumbled back, falling to his hands and knees as if exhausted. His opponent stepped forward slowly, gloating. Then, he exploded into motion, thrusting out both palms and blasting the thug backward with a flash of aura. Sky didn't wait to see where he would land before he swung his halberd and cut the cable.

He hadn't thought it through—hadn't really had time. When the stack of I-beams started to fall, Sky went with them. He clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle a scream. For an instant he was weightless. Then the ground slammed into him and he skidded off the top of the beams, landing in a heap on the ground and gasping for breath. His shoulder twinged in warning when he tried to sit up.

"Sky!" Ren rushed over to him, then stumbled and fell to one knee with a grunt. Both of them stayed there for a long moment, staring at the fallen beams, waiting for them to stir.

They didn't.

It would be a while before Sky really thought about what that meant.

* * *

Nora woke with a jolt as someone pounded on the door. She mumbled something and reached out to where Ren had been, only to meet cold sheets. Then she jerked upright, swung her legs out of bed, and heaved the door open. It only took one look at Ruby's expression to know that something was wrong. She bolted down the hallway, stopping only to grab her hammer.

It took twenty agonizing seconds for all the others to get their lazy butts out into the hallway. Nora personally woke up Yang and Russel, not by knocking on their door like Ruby had but by kicking it in. "Get up and let's go!" she shouted. Russel yelped and fell out of his bed. There was a muffled protest from another room, not one of the one's they'd rented, which she ignored.

"Wait." Dove came out in front of her, holding his hands up. "Put on your shoes, first." Nora was tempted to just push past him, but she stopped and backtracked to the room and shoved her feet into her boots. Then she waited restlessly while Dove pulled on his armor. He was only halfway done when he swore and started jogging down the hallway, doing up straps as he went. Pyrrha was the only one who actually seemed ready.

"Why's everyone freaking out?" Russel asked, as they hit the stairwell and thundered down to ground level. "Did they see something?"

Pyrrha was the one who answered. "Sky called me, he said they needed help."

"But what _happened?"_ Nora demanded. They got to the bottom of the stairs and sprinted through the lobby.

"He didn't say."

"Everybody quiet for a second," Ruby said, holding her scroll up to her ear. "Professor Goodwitch?"

"We're calling _Goodwitch?"_ Russel yelped. Yang shushed him.

"Miss Rose." Goodwitch's voice was tinny, but even through the scroll's feeble speaker she sounded resigned. "Why are you calling me at ten past three in the morning?"

Ruby's face went red. "Um... we're sort of in Vale. 329 Woodacre. I'm not sure what happened but it's an emergency."

There was a moment of near silence, then a clatter and a dull thump. "I'm on my way," Goodwitch said curtly. "What are you doing in Vale?"

"Uh..." Ruby's eyes went wide and panicked. "Well, we were investigating—"

Goodwitch muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, 'damn it.' Then, "Whatever you do, _stay out of it._ Get to safety."

"Yeah!" Ruby said, much too cheerfully. "We'll, um... do that." Before Goodwitch could protest, she closed her scroll, shoved it into her pocket, and led the way out the door of the hotel and into the street. It was dark outside—this part of town had a smattering of streetlights but a lot of them were broken. Nora concentrated on breathing, in and out through her mouth in short bursts, trying to maintain her pace. _Ren will be fine. Ren will be fine._

"Never... again," she panted. "Next time... 'M goin'... with Ren. Sky c'n... fight me." She liked Sky, she'd even call him a friend, but the thought that he was the _only one_ giving Ren any backup right now was _not_ comforting.

329 Woodacre was three blocks away, and all that mattered now was getting there _faster._ Nora kept her eyes on the ground, watching where she was placing her feet. Scattered pieces of broken glass glittered against the dark asphalt. In retrospect, Dove probably had a point about the shoes. Every now and then, she looked up and measured the distance. The only sound was their ragged breathing. They were too _slow._

Then, someone screamed. It was far-off, not a drawn-out horror movie shriek but a short, staccato sound. Definitely in the direction they were heading. Nora exchanged a look with Yang. That wasn't Ren or Sky—too high-pitched. _Female._

"Fuck," Russel said.

Nora had to agree.

* * *

329 Woodacre was not a building that inspired confidence. Weiss had already known that, but there was a huge difference between an eerie construction site during the _day,_ and that same site at a little before three in the morning. She swallowed nervously, then glanced at Blake. Her expression was unreadable.

"I don't like this," she whispered. Blake just nodded.

They approached slowly, panning their heads back and forth as they went. Person-shaped shadows seemed to be _everywhere,_ but a second look always failed to reveal anything moving. Just emptiness. Silence.

Blake went first, slipping from shadow to shadow as if she were one herself. Weiss had to stumble after her, cursing her pale... well, everything. Soon they were crouching behind a rusted-out shipping crate and eying the side of the building. There were a pair of double-doors only ten feet away, with the kinds of push-handles you see in supermarkets. They wouldn't be going in that way—it wasn't the main entrance, but there was nothing separating it from the rest of the warehouse. Instead they moved, as silently as they could and as quickly as they dared, around the side of the building to the back entrance that lead into the office.

Blake reached out and twisted the knob. The door swung open with a tiny squeak. They exchanged a startled glance, then ducked inside. It hadn't been locked when they scouted the place, either, but it was still disconcerting.

The office was nearly pitch black once they shut the door behind them. For a moment Weiss just stood there, listening to their breathing, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Eventually she could make out the silhouettes of the crates standing in one corner of the room, where a desk should have been.

The entrance to the main part of the warehouse was ajar. It definitely _hadn't_ been, when last they were there. They moved towards it cautiously, crouching low to peer through. All Weiss could see was blackness at first. Then, as she watched, the dark faded away. The clouds had parted, letting the light of the shattered moon peek through the hole in the roof and wash the concrete floor in silver. _Familiar._

As she took in the room, she felt one of Blake's ears brush against her cheek as it twitched. A moment later, she could hear the same thing—music, playing softly somewhere farther in. Slowly, tentatively, Blake risked poking her head out for an instant, then drew it back. She shook her head. No one there.

To Weiss' eyes the far end of the room was still shrouded in darkness. A small army could have been standing there, and she would have had no idea. Swallowing, she followed Blake in creeping a little further inside. Her partner pointed to one of the rooms. This one had a door, though there was a two-inch gap underneath it.

"They're in there, with the music," Blake whispered, mere inches from her ear. Weiss twitched involuntarily. "Makes it harder to overhear." The way she said it, she'd probably done the same thing at one point or another. Still, it felt... off. That was the sort of precaution you'd take if you were having your secret meeting in a diner, not in the middle of an abandoned warehouse.

There were too many empty doorways. Weiss felt a prickling at the back of her neck. They approached cautiously with Blake in the lead, checking each open room before they passed it. Finally they were within a few feet of the door, listening to the music. It was harsh, even angry, and louder now that they were closer. Weiss couldn't hear anything else.

She stood back a little, letting Blake kneel down and peer into the room. For a moment, everything was still, then she pulled back, looking troubled. She shook her head.

Weiss stared at her, uncomprehending. Blake just shook her head again. _No one inside._

The knot of anxiety in her stomach melted into a hot, sickly feeling. Then there was a shriek of metal on metal and a harsh _clang._ Weiss whirled around. The front and side doors were all barred with metal shutters, letting in only a few bars of moonlight. There was a humanoid shape silhouetted in each of them—one middling height, slender, with a boxy shape next to it that was probably a gun. The other was taller, broader, hidden even further in the shadows. The shorter one stepped forward into the moonlight, revealing an anonymous mask, hood, and... very familiar round glasses. On top of a Grimm mask.

"You look ridiculous," Weiss told him. Blake elbowed her in the side.

He just pulled back his mouth in a sneer. "Laugh all you like. Hell, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to—"

Gunshots went off somewhere outside. Weiss flinched. So did the man in front of them. _Who—?_

 _"Idiot,"_ he snarled.

Then, the other silhouette stepped forward. He turned out to be a tall man, maybe twenty-something, with red hair sticking up in spikes around a pair of curved horns. He wore a small mask that showed off the tight frown on his face, but it was intricately traced in red. Blake went completely, utterly still.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Weiss asked, folding her arms—loosely, so that she could still get at Myrtenaster easily. He took a few steps forward, the hem of his blood red coat swirling around his knees as he did so. Then he stopped again. He didn't speak.

Weiss cast a worried glance at Blake. She was staring at the new arrival, her face frozen in shock and horror. Something clicked. "You're Adam, aren't you."

"Yes." He laid a hand on the hilt of the sword sheathed at his side.

"I've heard a lot about you," she went on. She needed to keep talking—buy Blake time to recover. "Not much of it positive, I'm afraid."

His hand tightened on the sword. "Open your mouth again, and I'll cut your throat."

There was a snicker from behind them—a reminder that the man with glasses was still there. Weiss rolled her eyes. "I'd have to be unfathomably stupid not to assume that's your end goal regardless."

He cracked a small smile at that—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he bared one of his canines. "Cute."

She turned her head, only slightly, in the direction of the other. "And you are?" she asked.

"Perry," he supplied. "Make sure to include it in the begging for your life, Schnee." Weiss chose to ignore that last part.

"You had him following us," Blake said, her voice shaking only slightly.

Weiss thought she could see Adam's free hand trembling, too, before he balled it into a fist. "I did."

"Hardest job I've ever done," Perry said. "Resisting the urge to just... arrange a little accident."

Adam's frown deepened. "Silence," he barked. Perry shut up.

"Why?" Blake took a small step forward. "Why all of... _this?"_

"You know why."

Weiss nodded slowly. "Mountain Glenn. Someone thinks we know too much."

He moved towards them, and Blake shied away. "It's too late. We told Ozpin."

"I know," he said, through gritted teeth. "It's been causing problems. People poking their noses where they shouldn't be, slowing things down."

Weiss tried to study his expression, but it was difficult with the mask. He didn't look angry—but, then again, Father usually didn't look angry to the untrained eye. She let her hand drift a little closer to her weapon.

"Then why bother with this?" Blake asked. "Why lure us here?"

"I would have done it even if you weren't causing any trouble. You don't get to just disappear into the aether. Even if it's what you're best at." Blake flinched and looked down. "You needed to stop meddling in our business."

Blake shifted a little closer to her, so that their elbows brushed together. "I'm not going to stop," she said. "And there's no point pretending you'd let Weiss go. I've known you for years."

 _Years._ The word ran like a drop of icy water down her spine.

"No." He took another few steps closer. There was nowhere to retreat—Perry was behind them, and behind him the metal shutters. "She has to die. You... you could come back."

Blake laughed—it was a strained, bitter sound. "Right. And I'm sure everyone would welcome me with open arms."

"I'll make them." As if to punctuate the point, he slid his sword a few inches out of his sheath, revealing a deep red blade. Perry grunted—to Weiss' ears, it sounded disapproving.

"It doesn't work like that, Adam." Her voice had softened, becoming almost sympathetic. "The people who follow you don't give second chances. And I... I can't be one of those people anymore. I'm not going to let you hurt my friend."

 _"Friend?"_ he snarled, striding forward with his teeth bared. The change had happened so quickly that Weiss was still trying to process it when he reached them and brandished the sword. It glowed like the last ember of a fire, lost and forgotten among tall, dry grass.

There was a clicking sound behind them as Perry readied his gun. Weiss glanced his way, twisted one hand, and propelled him forward with a glyph. Blake leaned out of the way, and he skidded to the floor in front of them. Adam kept approaching, ignoring him entirely. "That _bitch,"_ he spat. A string of spittle caught the moonlight, and both his hands were shaking now. "You're calling her your _friend?_ Did you forget everything they've _done?!"_

"And what _have_ I done, exactly?" Weiss snapped. An old fury was flaring up, making it easier to face him. She kept her back straight and her head high, drawing Myrtenaster in a single, smooth motion. "You know, even after all these years I've yet to hear a coherent answer to that question."

"Weiss." Blake touched her arm. "Don't—"

He wasn't quite as fast as Ruby, but it was close. His sword went high, low, high again, and after only a few blows Weiss' arm was tingling with the force of them. She tried to counterattack, only for him to catch her blade on his and twist it around in a combination of skill and brute force. He landed a cut to her shoulder, one that her aura protected her from, and kept moving. She backed up, all her attention suddenly on defense.

"You live in the lap of luxury," he said, in a voice barely over a whisper. "Paid for with my people's blood."

 _Very dramatic,_ Weiss thought. _But hardly voluntary on my part._ She couldn't speak—it was taking all of her attention to keep him from hitting her again. Already she could feel the first stirrings of panic. He was going to win if this kept up. There wasn't even a question.

Blake came at him from behind, slashing at his exposed back. He turned, deflecting one of Weiss' attacks with his free arm and bringing his sword around. It cut through her without even a whisper. Weiss felt her heartbeat stutter, and then the body melted into shadow and she saw the _real_ Blake standing behind it.

Adam stopped in his tracks, momentarily paralyzed. Weiss spun her Dust chamber to red and stabbed him in the upper arm. He lurched sideways and swore as the fire washed over him, then turned around and cracked her across the face with his hilt. It hurt, but only distantly—she'd caught a hint of his expression, somewhere between anguished and deranged. He sheathed his sword.

"I've been wanting to meet you for a long time," he said, his lips peeling back into a mockery of a grin. "Planning it out."

He took a step, and on pure instinct she lashed out again. His sword slid out of its sheath, the flat of the blade catching the brunt of the flames. They died away prematurely, and the weapon's glow seemed to brighten.

"Don't!" Blake called out. "You'll charge his semblance."

Her back was against the wall, now. She glanced about frantically, then yelped when a bullet grazed her shoulder. Perry was up again—she hadn't even noticed. He lunged for Blake, and she let him. The moment he was close enough, she grabbed him by the arm and threw herself backwards, leaving behind a stone statue of herself with his wrist in her grasp. Another clone, this one detonating explosively, sent him skidding back into the shadows with a pained groan. He tried to push himself up, then flopped to the ground and lay still.

Turning on her heel, Blake swung at Adam again, but he only knocked her arm aside with one fist. "Stop! This _has_ to stop!"

"We're so close, now," he said, almost caressing the words. "To the world we used to stay up talking about."

"No."

"I want you to be part of it. I want to _show_ you—"

 _"No!"_ She pointed her gun at him. "I never wanted that."

"You wanted to keep your hands clean." He was breathing hard, now. "Wanted me to do all the dirty work for you."

She shot at him, but he lifted his sheath to block the blow. Weiss tried to take advantage and roll out of the way, but he kicked out and sent her sprawling. She caught herself against the wall and pushed herself back upright, parrying his follow-up with Myrtenaster.

"I hated what happened!" Blake burst out. "I didn't want to hurt anyone, and you—" she stopped.

"I what?" He spread his hands. "I saved your life? Protected you, like I always do?"

"You killed him." She wasn't even trying to fight, now. Just staring at him, pleading with him to understand. "You killed him, and then you acted like you didn't even care."

"Revolution isn't easy. You were never willing to get blood on your hands."

_'You can't simply expect things to be handed to you, Weiss.'_

"But it doesn't matter."

_'It hardly matters.'_

"I can do it for you."

_'I'll handle your education.'_

"I can take care of everything."

"You know," Weiss said, "You remind me of my Father."

He froze. He turned his head to the side. She could see his face in profile, the harsh lines of the mask and the angle of his nose. His mouth was flat, his lips pressed tightly together, made pale and bloodless by the silvery light. His sword arm lashed out—and Weiss screamed.


	39. Tensile Testing [12]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ajsdlkgjgksgj FFN WHY IS THE ENTIRE PREVIEW CHAPTER ITALICIZED.

Jaune pulled out his scroll mid-stride, his hands shaking as he tried to open it. He thumbed through his contacts. After a moment's hesitation, he scrolled down and pressed on an icon simply titled, _Winter._ There was a small click as she accepted the call.

"Downtown Vale," he panted. "Need help. Not sure why."

"I know."  
  


"Look, I—huh?"

"Someone sent an anonymous tip," she said, terse. "I'm on my way."

"Oh. Good."

"Hang up, Jaune."  
  


He hung up.

"That's it?" Cardin stared at him.

"She knows," Jaune huffed out. "Someone else called it in." He skidded to a halt at an intersection, looked around. "Where _are_ they?!" He craned his neck around, his heart still hammering from the running and the panicking and the realization that he couldn't see another person anywhere, let alone his teammates.

Cardin shoved his hands in his pockets. "Why are you asking me?"

_"Cardin!"_

Just as his partner opened his mouth to reply, there was an earth-shattering _clatter,_ like someone had just dropped a dozen pots and pans the size of buses. His head snapped around to where the noise had come from—a half-built building less than a block away. He tore down the street, his sneakers pounding against the asphalt, jarring him all the way up to his knees. Briefly he thought of Ruby, wished he could burst apart and _move_ the way she could.

For all his grumbling, Cardin kept pace with him—he even pulled ahead, with his longer legs. Then they both came to a sharp halt outside the empty building. Jaune felt a chill. If he'd had any doubt that something was wrong, the mere sight of this place would have erased it.

They approached the nearest door they could see, set roughly in the middle of the wall facing them. He tugged on the handle—locked. Cardin shoved him roughly aside, then braced his shoulder against it. Instead of backing up and ramming it, he dug his heels in and pushed. It opened with a sharp _crack_ that felt horribly loud to Jaune's ears.

Just behind it, there was a young woman in a Grimm mask. He was struck by the freckles on her cheeks, not quite hidden by the White Fang uniform. Incongruous. She turned towards them, drawing in a breath to shout. Cardin grabbed her in a headlock and clamped a hand over her mouth. Then he dragged her outside.

"What are you—" Jaune started to say, but he just gave her a little shove and struck her on the back of the head with the hilt of his mace. She crumpled. He winced as if it was _him_ that had just been clobbered.

Cardin rushed through the door, and Jaune followed. They were inside a small room, now, with no lights and a stack of crates in one corner. At the other end, there was another door, slightly ajar. They crept forward and peered through.

"It doesn't have to be this way!"

Everything seemed uncannily still. There was a tall man with his back to them, revealing a rose emblazoned on his coat. He was holding a sword straight out from the shoulder, and he was shaking so badly that its tip was drawing little circles in the air.

"You don't need to do this!" _  
_

Blake was in front of him, both arms thrown out, the sword only a few inches away from her throat. Her weapon was on the ground, the ribbon pooling around it, running like a thin dark stream between her left foot and the man's right.

"Please..."

Behind Blake, Weiss was kneeling, clutching her face in both hands. For an instant Jaune thought she was crying, with something dripping slow and steady to the concrete beneath her, but it was too dark to be water. He swallowed hard.

"Just get out of the way." The man was still pleading, his voice cracking. Blake just stared at him, eyes wild, saying nothing. "I don't want to... _please!"_ He kept repeating it until it sounded nonsensical, singsong.

"Cardin," Jaune breathed. "Can you distract him for a second?"

The man moved closer, drawing the blade back so that it stayed poised by Blake's neck, never breaking skin. She tried to back up but stopped when her foot hit Weiss' shin. Tensed. Then she launched herself at him, snagging the ribbon on her gun with one foot and kicking it up into her hand. He recoiled, swinging his sword away from her.

Cardin burst through the doorway, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey! Horny!"

Jaune's mouth fell open. The man stumbled, and Blake shot him in the chest twice. Then he shook his head, recovering, still not even glancing Cardin's way. The sword came back into line. This time it wasn't shaking.

"I'm talking to you, Bessie!"

His head twitched, making a three-quarter turn before he stopped. "Leave now," he called out. "And you'll be the only human ever to survive speaking to me like that."

"Maybe that's a good idea," Cardin said, putting a hand on his hip. "I've got a friend I could talk to really quick. Nice girl, bright red cape. Think she'd let me borrow it for this fight?"

Blake stared at him in a sort of horrified awe. _"Cardin?_ What the hell are you—"

"You know him." The man still didn't bother to glance in Cardin's direction. "Good. Makes this easier."

He raised the sword. Cardin jogged forward and made an exaggerated lowing sound. Jaune, still crouched in the doorway, couldn't decide if there was a kind of black humor to be found here, or if it was just horrifying on every level. Either way, the man was still too close. _Just another few steps..._

Finally, _finally,_ he turned to face Cardin. The bone mask over his face glinted in the moonlight streaming in through a hole in the ceiling, but the holes for his eyes were lost in shadow.

"Ooh." Cardin stepped closer—he was less than ten feet away, now. "So you _can_ make sharp turns."

A muscle stood out on the man's neck. His mouth curled into a sneer. Then he was dashing forward, teeth bared, sword swinging in a wide arc. Cardin didn't even try to dodge—he just lurched forward and caught the faunus in a bear hug. The moment he connected, he braced himself and went completely, utterly still.

Jaune bolted into the room, giving the now-struggling man a wide berth, and skidded to a stop next to a wide-eyed Blake. "Go!" he yelped, panic making his voice rise by half an octave. "Go, go, go!" He bent down, getting his shoulder under Weiss' arm and hauling her upright. Blake pressed in on her other side, taking on some of her weight. He concentrated on bringing his aura up out of him, letting it gather at his fingertips and then flow out of him.

He started moving before he was even sure it was working. Cardin couldn't breathe when he was frozen—he could only hold the man for less than a minute. There was a door nearby, but it was blocked by a set of heavy metal shutters. They veered back around the way they'd come, then charged out through the back room and into the open air.

"Holy crap." The words felt torn out of him, like an instinctive animal response. "Holy crap, _holy crap—"_

"Left," Blake snapped, giving him a shove. He veered that way, then saw what she was seeing—the rest of the lot was scattered with junk. In other words, cover.

  
Behind them, there was an enraged roar followed by a shout—Cardin had unfrozen. Jaune swerved around the nearest object, a huge dumpster, and kept moving. The three of them shuffled forward, scanning the lot desperately for someplace to hide. There was a rusted-out bulldozer, a huge crane, a pile of metal beams— _a person._

Jaune skidded to a stop. _What if they're White Fang?_ Then Blake raised her free hand over her head.

"Ren!" she shouted. "Sky!"

Both figures whirled around. Jaune and Blake hobbled towards them. The other two met them in the middle. "What the—" Sky started to say. Jaune bowled right over him.

"Cardin's in there!" He pointed. "We gotta go, we gotta hide—hospital, definitely a hospital, and _freaking—"_

"Jaune." Ren clapped him on the shoulder. His frantic heartbeat slowed. "We have backup incoming. Keep going that way." He gestured towards the street. "We'll hold them off if they come after you."

"What?!" Sky's eyes went huge. "Okay, wait, slow down!"

They were already moving. Weiss wasn't heavy— _it was scary how light she was, really, like she might drift away if they didn't hold on—_ but it was getting harder and harder to run while carrying her. He and Blake had to stumble along at the same speed, and every time he tripped over a loose brick she would make a slight, pained noise in the back of her throat. His aura was still spilling out of him. He tried to force it out faster, but it only bled out of his free hand, dissipating like mist into the air around him.

There was a long, wild howl behind them—not an animal sound but something from a person's throat, which only made it worse. Blake stumbled. All of Weiss' weight came down on Jaune's shoulder, and he tipped sideways. The three of them landed about ten feet from the road, with Blake kneeling, him on all fours with one arm supporting Weiss, and her hanging limply between them.

A bright light shone in his eyes. He looked up in a panic, then almost cried with relief when he saw the car approaching.

Weiss let out a long, low groan.

"I'm sorry," Blake mumbled, curling forward. "You're... you're going to be okay, we'll—"

"Did... did Cardin just save our lives?" Her voice was thick, like she had a bad cold, and the words were so slurred he could barely understand them.

"Y-yes." The squealing of brakes cut through the air, and the car banked hard to the left.

"That's so _embarrassing,"_ Weiss grumbled. Blake let out a choked sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. The car spun halfway around, then came to a screeching halt just in front of them. Before it had stopped completely, the door was opening.

"Weiss!"

Winter leapt free of the vehicle and landed in a dead sprint. The moment she was close enough, she dropped down in front of Weiss. Jaune let himself slump forward, feeling suddenly too exhausted to keep his back straight.

More people were coming out of the car—one of them stumbled, apparently still dizzy from the rough stop. They were all soldiers, decked out in white Atlesian armor with full-face helmets. Winter ignored them. She reached out, gently taking Weiss' wrists and pulling her hands away from her face, then inhaled sharply.

"How bad?" Weiss asked.

Winter took hold of one of her palms—in the light from the car's headlights, Jaune could see that it was slick and red. Then she cupped it and guided it back into place over Weiss' right eye. "Don't press down, and don't open either eye."

Weiss' head jerked forward, as if she was trying to nod. Then she winced. "Ouch."

"Keep _still,"_ Winter snapped. She reached out again, this time to smooth Weiss' hair out of her face. Jaune couldn't see the soldier's faces, but he thought he heard one of them make a startled noise.

"Winter?" Jaune said, tentatively. Her head snapped towards him, her gaze sharp. "It's... our other teammate is still in there, and... and two of our friends are trying to help him." He watched her expression freeze. Her jaw clenched, a muscle there jumping just the way her father's did. Then she closed her eyes and took a breath. Opened them. Stood up.

  
"You!" She gestured to the soldiers. All of them straightened up, their hands going to their weapons. "Get these three to Vale General. _Now."_

Jaune let one of the soldiers take his place supporting Weiss and turned towards Winter. He opened his mouth—he wasn't even sure why, exactly, except that he felt like he should thank her and maybe give her a warning he had no idea how to articulate. Then he stopped. She was staring intently at a point about thirty feet away, and her hand had gone to her sword. "You there! Show yourself!"

"Um..." he stared at where she was looking. "There's no one—"

Winter tensed. "Bastard," she muttered. Then she darted off towards the warehouse, skimming across a line of pale glyphs.

Jaune shook his head, confused, then glanced over his shoulder at the soldiers. None of them were looking that way—they were all busy getting Weiss and Blake into the back of the car. Two of them were standing off to the side, probably the two that would be left behind to make room. No one else had seen. Maybe he was just too tired to notice... whatever she'd noticed?

"Hey, kid!" One of the soldiers beckoned him with one arm. "Hurry up!"

He jolted back to life and rushed forward, sliding into the backseat while one of the soldiers held the door for him. Blake was curled in on herself, her shoulders curved in front of her, one arm pressed against her stomach. She didn't look at him when he slammed the door closed.

Weiss was lying across the seat, her head in Blake's lap and her feet across his knees. Her head was tilted back, her hand still cupped over her eye. Jaune winced—there was a light inside, and he could see the way her forearm was streaked red. _It's probably fine, though,_ he thought. _Ruby says head wounds always bleed a lot, even if they're not serious._ Probably she just had a cut over her eyebrow. Probably...

Jaune put a hand on her ankle and tried to channel more of his aura. It melted into the air, flaking away in pale white wisps. She was full up—from what he could see, the blood had stopped flowing. His semblance wasn't going to help any more than it already had.

He kept doing it anyway.

* * *

The cavalry arrived only half-dressed.

Nora had been hard-pressed to put on shoes, Yang was still in shorts and a tank top, and Russel had panicked and grabbed his uniform shirt by accident. It was unbuttoned, fluttering in his wake as he ran. Dove himself had strapped his armor on over his sleepwear. They were unimpressive, as cavalries went, but Pyrrha had been the first to wake up and the quickest to dress, and Ruby's scythe looked intimidating whether or not she was wearing flowery pajama pants. That lent them a little credibility, at least.

Maybe they shouldn't run quite so fast, spend so much energy that they might need for fighting, but they kept hearing noises. First the scream, then a deafening clang like a gong or a bell. Nora and Ruby lead the pack, and Dove was wheezing by the time they approached the construction site.

For an instant, he wondered if they were too late. There was a white car parked by the side of the road that fishtailed away before they could get a good look at it, and Dove couldn't help but think that maybe Sky and Ren had been in there. Then he looked closer, and realized there were two armored figures and a third, dressed all in white, moving away from them across a trail of glyphs.

_Weiss?_ No, too tall. Her sister Winter, then—he'd heard from Russel that she was in Vale. What was Atlas even doing here at this time of night?

"Hey!" Ruby waved at the nearest soldier, who startled so badly they dropped their gun.

"Who are—"

"Sorry gotta go!" Nora shouted, shoving past them and tearing off towards the building. The rest of them followed. One of the soldiers tried to grab hold of Yang, who was nearest, but she just twisted out of reach and kept running.

They weren't even halfway there before they heard the gunshots. Nora's head snapped towards where they'd come from. "Ren," she said.

More gunshots, along with the sharp crystalline sounds Dove normally associated with Weiss. They veered around a heap of scattered I-beams he would swear hadn't been there before, and there they were. Two figures stood out—one dark, dressed in deep reds and blacks, horned and snarling. The other light, all whites and baby blues, her expression stony. Ren and Sky were behind them, with the former hanging back and aiming potshots when he could and the latter kneeling next to a bag, or... or a person.

"Tell me," said the horned man, just as they approached. "Did she like the souvenir I gave her?"

_She. A scream. Souvenir. The inexplicable presence of an Atlesian specialist. The other researcher._ Dove went cold. The person on the ground next to Sky was much too big to be Weiss—but it could easily be Cardin. Was ABSW here, too? _Why?_

Winter's calm façade fell away. She rushed at him, pushing him backwards in a flurry of blows, her expression twisting into something almost feral. He stepped back, smirking. Dove took in the cruel satisfaction, the curving horns, the Grimm mask and the streaks of darker red on his blade. A pale mist began in his throat, curling in the air as he breathed out, then billowing from his palms, from under his shoulderguards, from the spot just over his heart. He ignored it—as sure as he might be that the man was a monster, he was still technically a person and wouldn't be affected by it.

Instead, he knelt opposite Sky. He'd been right—it was Cardin on the ground, staring dazedly up at them. There was a deep cut along his left side, just under the armpit, another on his upper right thigh, and a third on his arm. "Russel!" Dove snapped, beckoning his teammate over even as the others fanned out to prepare for the fight. There were nine of them, and at a certain point overwhelming numbers just turned into tripping over your own allies. Better to get Cardin help.

Sky was doing everything he could, which wasn't much. He'd cannibalized the red sash around Cardin's waist and was trying to use pieces of it to put pressure on his wounds, but there was only one of him. Dove took over the cut on his thigh the second he was close enough, and gestured for Russel to handle the one on his arm.

He spared a glance towards the fight. Winter was still advancing, attacking aggressively and ignoring a few small nicks to her aura. Ruby and Pyrrha had cut off the man's retreat from the side, and were working in tandem—the two of them were keeping up with him _much_ better than Dove would have. Even as he watched, Pyrrha blocked a blow with her shield and pushed his sword hard to the side. By the time he recovered, Ruby had twirled her scythe around once, twice, three times—the blade catching him across the chest, throat, and stomach with each pass.

When he stumbled away from them, he ran headlong into Yang and Nora. There he did a little better—neither of them were slow by any means, but Dove had been hard pressed to track some of the man's movements. It was probably only Ruby's semblance and Pyrrha's sheer experience that was letting them handle him so well. The one and only time either of Dove's teammates managed to hit him, Nora landed a hit to his chest and he went skidding fifteen feet and slipped on a coating of ice courtesy of Winter.

There was no way he was going to win. Maybe he'd thought the same thing—he ducked between Yang and Winter, deflecting a nasty thrust to his kidney, and laughed. It sounded more than a little unhinged. Then, incredibly, he sheathed his sword. "Your family loves to talk about courage, but you squeal like pigs."

Winter charged him. Dove let his mouth twist into a vicious smirk—he liked to think he was slow to anger and slower to hatred, but he couldn't deny feeling both just then. Her opponent was backed into a corner, mouthing off in an attempt to distract her, but she didn't seem to be losing any finesse as she got angrier. The taunts were just the last, desperate thrashing of a fish with a hook through it's eye.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sky go completely rigid. His mouth gaped open, his hands curled around the cloth he was holding to Cardin's side, and he screamed, "Duck!"

Winter didn't quite follow his warning. She halted her charge, then backpedaled and thrust her saber in front of her to block. The man unsheathed his sword and slashed out with the same motion. There was a quiet thump, as the last foot and a half of the saber hit the ground. It had been sliced clean through.

To her credit, Winter barely missed a beat. With a little twist of the hilt, she drew a dagger from inside the saber and tossed the broken sword to the ground. Her left hand flicked out, calling up a massive glyph underneath her. Flakes of white burst into the air, like hail falling in reverse, then flapped around her in a maelstrom of wings and tiny, razor-sharp feathers.

The man was already running. "Filthy coward!" she spat, and darted after him. The others all tensed to follow. Dove's mind raced—should he go after them, or stay with Cardin? A leader should stay with his team, but he couldn't help feeling like he might be needed more where he was.

All that was rendered moot when a voice like the crack of a whip snapped, "Stay right there."

Dove turned reluctantly, despite the fact that he already knew full-well that it was Goodwitch behind him. They'd called her, after all. She was glaring at them, her riding crop clenched in one fist. Her nostrils flared.

"I am torn between expelling the lot of you and awarding you a medal, and unfortunately I don't have the time to decide just now. Stay with Bartholomew—we will take it from here." With that, she turned on her heel and strode off in the direction Winter had gone—followed by Professor Port and... _Professor Peach?_ Dove gaped. This was probably the first time in years she'd left the grounds of Beacon.

"We're in so much trouble," Russel breathed, sounding awestruck.

Doctor Oobleck pushed his glasses further up his nose. "You have been reckless, yes." His glasses flashed. "But we are not inclined to forget that you just saved four of your classmates' lives, and neither should you."

"Uh... four?" Ruby blinked up at him.

He coughed. "Ah, yes. Well. All you need to know for now is that no one has been killed."

"That is _not_ reassuring!" Ruby burst out. "Is Jaune okay?"

"He's fine." Oobleck crouched next to Cardin and produced a first-aid kit. He set to applying proper bandages to each cut, slowly and methodically.Then, he gave them a little grin Dove could only describe as sheepish. "I don't suppose any of you have a license?"

"You don't?" Russel sounded incredulous.

"Indeed I _do,_ Mister Thrush, but this place is far from safe. I cannot leave you unsupervised, and we can hardly be expected to fit all nine of you into one car."

They all looked around. No one spoke. Then Russel sighed. "So... not _technically,_ but—"

"That will have to do." Oobleck gestured to Yang and Nora. "Would you two be so kind as to— _gently—_ carry Mister Winchester to the car? Misters Lie and Lark will accompany him, as you two seem to be in need of some minor medical assistance." It was then that Dove noticed for the first time the way Ren was favoring his right arm, and the livid bruise on Sky's cheek. "I believe that's all we'll be able to fit with Mister Winchester reclining."

"So, just drive... y'know..."

"Safely."

"You still haven't said legally."

_"Mister Thrush."_

Russel hopped into the car, and seconds later the engine was humming. Yang helped Nora lift Cardin into the car, lying him flat across the seats. Sky got into the back with him, kneeling in the well where his feet might have gone if he were sitting normally, keeping one hand on Cardin's hip and another just under his arm so that he wouldn't fall if they braked suddenly. Probably wise, considering the driver. Ren sat in the passenger's seat, took one look at Russel, and very pointedly buckled himself in.

The rest of them were left standing in a dissatisfied clump in the middle of the abandoned property. Dove heaved a sigh—a puff of mist flowed out of him. "So that's what that looks like," Nora said quietly. "I thought it only worked on Grimm."

He suddenly felt ashamed. The mist withered away, sinking in dying wisps to the ground. "I thought so too," he mumbled. It was impossible to tell how much of the righteous fury, the _loathing_ that had powered his semblance had stemmed from the man's cruelty, his sneer, the as-yet-unexplained _souvenir,_ and how much had just been his horns.

Nora gave his shoulder a gentle bump. "He was a butt," she decided.

Dove raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

She frowned, then stared him in the eye. He shifted, feeling suddenly as though she was looking right through him. "Yeah," she said, nodding. "That's it."

* * *

Ruby learned what had happened in bits and pieces.

One big piece came when they first arrived at the hospital. Nurses directed them to a small waiting room at the end of a long hallway. On the opposite wall was a door, ominously marked 'Surgery.' When she looked around, and started seeing posters of glasses and diagrams of the parts of an eye all over the walls, her heart sank.

It wasn't hard to find the others. Blake was slumped in the chair nearest the operating room, with Jaune next to her. To his other side was Sky, who was staring at the ground and holding an ice pack to his temple. Ren was sitting up straight, his right arm in a sling across his chest. Nora rushed over and gave him a tentative hug.

"It's not as bad as it looks," he promised. She put both hands on her hips and glared at him until he looked at the floor.

Dove plopped down so that one seat was left between him and Ren. Nora took it. Ruby walked over to Jaune, who was cradling his head in one hand and staring off into space. Pyrrha followed her, and both of them stood awkwardly in front of him. It was always weird towering over someone, she didn't know how people like Cardin managed it.

Speaking of which... "Um," she said. "Is... how is everyone?"

He looked up, then over at the 'Surgery' door. "Weiss is in there. I haven't heard about Cardin in a little while, but I gave him some of my aura when he got here. Last I saw he was sleeping."

"That's good, right?"

Jaune still hadn't taken his eyes off the door. "Cardin's definitely okay."

_Oh._

"Nobody died, though. Right?" Russel grinned hopefully around. Nobody seemed to eager to get in on the good cheer. Sky flinched.

They were saved from even more depressing brooding by a nurse walking in from the hallway outside. She did a double-take when she saw them. "Ah, I see the rest of you have arrived."

"Yes, ma'am," Ruby said. She wasn't totally sure where the ma'am came from, but there was something unmistakably matronly about the woman—she had the right sort of warm, calming smile.

"Cardin Winchester is awake and ready for visitors." She glanced over their group. "Unfortunately, I don't think his room is big enough to hold all of you."

"That's okay." Jaune stood up. "It's probably better if some of us stay here, anyway." One of Blake's ears flicked in his direction, at that, but she didn't speak. "So, uh... who wants to come with?"

There was an awkward pause. _Great._ "Uh, I can go," Ruby offered. "And..." she locked eyes with Pyrrha, who nodded and stood up.

"Alright." The nurse smiled. "Just follow me."

During the short walk to Cardin's room, they learned that the nurse's name was Honey—"Yes, I know, a spoonful makes the medicine go down, I've heard _all_ the jokes..."—and that their classmate was _theoretically_ capable of walking around. But, as the nurse assured them, he was still very weak and would risk reopening something, so they wanted to keep him there to rest for day or two.

Jaune barely batted an eye when Cardin opened the door for them, leaning heavily on an IV stand and cursing under his breath. Honey shooed him back to bed while his partner sighed and said that maybe, just _maybe,_ this team would get injured less often if they all stopped treating their health and safety like such a chore. Cardin sneered and called him mom.

Whatever he said—and he said a _lot,_ mostly about how the stupidity of his team was contagious, and how it barely even hurt anymore so it was ridiculous to make him lie down, and that if the nurse was so worried about him wandering around how about giving him something to _do_ before he decided to bust out—Cardin was only barley awake. He would start a sentence, zone out, then sometimes continue it minutes later and sometimes drop it completely. Honey patiently explained that he was on painkillers and not very coherent. He told her to jump in... in a... water.

"You should be nicer to her when she's taking care of you," Ruby pointed out. Cardin made a vague gesture with his hand that was probably supposed to be rude, but he did it with the wrong arm and had to lie back for a moment. By the time the pain passed, he was asleep.

"Sorry about him," Jaune said, the moment they were outside. "He's not normally... uh... _that_ much like that."

Honey waved a hand. "No trouble, dear. Huntsmen and Huntresses always make the worst patients." Ruby made an indignant noise, but the nurse just chuckled. "Oh, they'll let you amputate a limb without anesthetic, but mention resting in bed for a couple days and they throw a tantrum."

Ruby wanted to argue with that, and even opened her mouth to do so. Then she realized that this woman who she'd never met before had just perfectly described her sister, her uncle, and even sometimes her dad. She closed it again.

"Uh..." Jaune rubbed the back of his neck. "Should we stay here, or...?"

"I'll walk you back to opthalmology. Your other friend is supposed to be ready for visitors soon."

Jaune swallowed. "Um, do you know... how bad it is?"

Honey shook her head and gave him an apologetic pat on the back. "You'll know as soon as I do, dear."

"Okay." He nodded. "I, uh, I think we can find our own way. Thank you."

That turned out to be a little harder than they'd expected, mostly because Jaune had been too out of it to pay attention to where they were going and Ruby had just followed the others on autopilot. Pyrrha eventually took the lead, pointing out where they'd come from.

Jaune heaved a sigh. "I think I can actually feel the stress aging me."

Pyrrha rested a hand on his shoulder. "They'll be alright, Jaune."  
  


"Yeah!" Ruby grinned. "I mean, Cardin is already annoying the nurses."

He looked away, then tilted his head up towards the ceiling. "I know. I _know,_ it's just... she looked so _small."_ Then he rubbed at his forehead and let out a choked laugh. "You don't actually realize she's shorter than you. I mean—"

_"I most cer—cer—will not!"_ The voice was a little muddled, but it was definitely Weiss.

Jaune stopped in midsentence just outside the door to the waiting room, his mouth open. Then he sighed as if he were irritated, despite the small smile on his face. "Why did I think she'd be a better patient than Cardin?"

"Always the optimist?" Ruby suggested.

He grinned. "Is it bad that I'm kind of glad she's already yelling at nurses?"

Pyrrha pushed the doors open, revealing Weiss—now sporting a swathe of bandages around her right eye and, from the looks of it, trying to escape the wheelchair she was sitting in. Standing just behind her was a disgruntled-looking woman wearing square glasses and a set of green surgical scrubs. On her left was Winter, apparently back from hunting the guy that had done all this in the first place. Across from them was the towering pale figure of Mr. Schnee. Slightly behind all the action, BRYN and the rest of RSPR were shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Blake was sitting ramrod straight, hands clenched in the fabric of her leggings, her left ear twitching.

"What's going on?" Jaune asked cautiously, stepping up beside them.

Everyone turned to face the newcomers. Mr. Schnee's face was slightly red, and his hair was, for him, shockingly unkempt. "Your school is a madhouse," he snapped. "That's what's _going on."_

Weiss tried to roll her eyes, then yelped and put a hand to the bandage. "Miss Schnee," the surgeon said coolly, "Please refrain from exacerbating the injury."

"Why?" Weiss slurred. Winter shot her a _look._ "What? 'S not... can't get worse."

"Is that the sort of thinking that got you into this mess?" her father demanded, seething. "Because I can't for the _life_ of me understand your reasoning."

"She still has anesthetic in her system," the surgeon replied dryly. "I highly doubt anyone is going to understand her reasoning for the next few hours."

"'M not stupid," Weiss grumbled. "Just drowsy."

"And in no condition to have an argument," the surgeon agreed. "Will someone—Jade!" She beckoned, and a young man with a blue-green braid came around the corner. "Room two-eighteen." He nodded and took the wheelchair.

"Hey!" Weiss scuffed her foot on the floor in an attempt to stop herself. The hospital slip-ons she'd been given didn't seem to have great traction.

"Go _sleep,"_ the surgeon called after them. "As for all of you—she can have visitors once she's better rested. No more than two or three at a time, I don't want this entire horde crowding her."

Blake spoke for the first time since Ruby had seen her back at Beacon the day before. "How bad is it?"

The surgeon inclined her head. "It's vastly unlikely she'll see out of that eye again. Otherwise she's perfectly healthy—there was some damage to the eye socket, but it's very minor."

"That's it?" Mr. Schnee straightened up. "Two hours, and that's _it?"_

"We've done everything we can, but the optical nerve was damaged—" Mr. Schnee turned on his heel and strode out of the room, his jaw clenched.

Winter rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "I apologize. It's been a stressful morning."

"It's quite alright." The surgeon cleared her throat. "I will say, considering the placement of the cut and what I've been told about its cause, she has been remarkably lucky."

"Have you told Weiss about this?"

"Not in so much detail. I'll wait until she has a better chance of remembering it."

The doctors opted to put Weiss in the same room as Cardin, mostly so that Jaune wouldn't have to keep running back and forth. Their group milled around in the hallway, with only Winter and the other two members of ABSW inside. Then, Jaune reemerged.

"I think this is it," he said. "I mean, now we're mostly waiting around while they sleep."

"Do you know if they caught him?" Dove asked.

Jaune scowled. "No. Winter said he got away. They caught two others that were helping him, and... uh, apparently there was a blond guy that escaped, too, but I never saw him."

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Either way, everyone's out of danger now. You guys can go back to Beacon."

Ruby and Pyrrha both tried to protest, but he just shook his head. "Really, it's okay. I think Goodwitch wants to talk to you about what happened. Plus you can't have slept that much better than I did last night."

"I still think a couple of us should stay." Ruby reached out to fiddle with her cloak and found only her pajama shirt. "Just in case."

At that, he managed a smile. "The good thing about all this is that just in case isn't really a worry anymore. From what the doctors told me, we're only waiting for them to sleep off the painkillers. I'm fine, I promise."

"How about we all go back to Beacon and rest," Pyrrha suggested, "And then we can come visit you in a few hours?"

He hesitated. "You really don't have to—" Ruby made a face at him, and he laughed. "Okay, okay. I'll see you later."

No one had much energy during the walk back to Beacon, not even Nora. It was only then that they noticed the little things—Ruby had a bruise on her elbow that she couldn't even remember getting. Russel's shirt was covered in dirt and Cardin's blood, which would have been a lot more horrifying if they hadn't seen him pouting at nurses less than an hour ago. The adrenaline was long gone, and they'd barely had any sleep.

When Professor Goodwitch met them at Beacon's main entrance, Russel voiced what they were all probably thinking—"Crap."

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he turned bright red and muttered something like an apology. Then she turned to address all eight of them and said, "Team Brine will be spared their debriefing until later this afternoon."

All four of them groaned in relief. Yang at least had the common decency to look a little bit guilty about it. It wasn't much comfort. RSPR followed their professor—they were exhausted and wanted nothing more than to ignore the debriefing until later, but you didn't just walk away from Goodwitch without a really, _really_ good reason. She herded them all the way to the CCT tower and into the elevator.

"Um..." Ruby really didn't want to be the one to ask, but she was pretty sure no one else would. "How much trouble are we in, exactly?"

Goodwitch sighed, looking suddenly almost as tired as they were. "Well. You endangered yourselves and your classmates, independently investigated a matter you were explicitly told to _drop_ and leave to the authorities, left school grounds without permission, stayed out past curfew, and I'm sure there's something about trespassing in there somewhere."

Ruby winced a little harder with every word, wishing she had her cloak to cover herself with.

"On the other hand, I am quite sure that if your group had not intervened, the entirety of Alabaster would have died." Hearing that was, if anything, even _worse_ than the list of rules they'd broken.

The elevator dinged open, admitting the four of them into what had to be the Headmaster's office. Ruby tilted her head back to gawk open-mouthed at the intricate lattice of gears ticking away above their heads. How had someone made them so _quiet?_ Then Ozpin cleared his throat, and her attention snapped back to him.

"Thank you for joining me so soon after the... events of last night," he said, smiling warmly at them. "Rest assured, you aren't here to be punished for saving your classmates." Ruby sagged with relief. She hadn't thought it would be _that_ bad, and definitely not worse than _not_ helping Jaune's team, but it was still good to get that confirmed.

"There are matters I'd like to discuss. I will leave extracting the exact details to Glynda—I'm more concerned with the bigger picture.

"Roman Torchwick. Hei Xiong, or Junior. The White Fang." He steepled his fingers. "On the whole, three of the strangest bedfellows I have ever seen. Yet, through the _extensive_ interactions between your grade level and the criminal elements of Vale, we seem to have links between all three. They attempted to murder two of _my students_ who were investigating this link." His eyes flashed dangerously. "To make a gross understatement, this does not bode well."

Professor Goodwitch stepped up so that she was next to the headmaster. "I didn't want to involve any of you," she said, "for fear that something like this might happen. Of course, you seem determined to run headlong into danger _anyway."_

"We came to the conclusion—" Ozpin said, and Goodwitch shot him a dirty look, "—that it would be best to keep you informed, in the most general terms, of what is going on. On the condition, of course, that you stay out of harm's way until you have an official reason to be there."

"Um..." Ruby glanced nervously at her teammates. Ren seemed pensive as usual, and Pyrrha was looking at their professors with rapt attention. When she caught their eyes, both of them nodded. Sky just kept staring at the ground. "Okay."

"Excellent." Ozpin stood up. "Miss Nikos, if I could have a word?"

Pyrrha's head jerked up. "A word?"

He smiled again, but Ruby couldn't help thinking there was something off about it. "I won't keep you from your well-deserved rest any longer than necessary, and I can assure you that you're in no trouble."

"Of course."

"Then I will leave the rest of you to discuss the particulars with Glynda, and then to get some sleep."

Goodwitch led the three of them back out of the CCT, through Beacon's courtyard, and then to a room Ruby recognized as her office. Technically she had office hours that students were invited to attend, but in practice almost no one was brave or desperate enough to knock.

It wasn't anything special, especially compared to Ozpin's gears. A desk, a few chairs, shelves of books and a couple of framed certifications. The only personal touch seemed to be a photograph of a younger Professor Goodwitch with three other teenagers—probably her team. She sat down behind her desk and waited.

They explained as well as they could. Ruby discovered that waking up at a little past three in the morning and then fighting a terrorist made details get really fuzzy. She, Sky, and Ren all agreed that the man they'd fought had been a faunus with bull's horns, and that he'd been wearing red-and-black with a rose on the back of his coat. They disagreed wildly on what his face had looked like, or the sound of his voice. None of them could remember a name. It went on like that for a while, until Goodwitch asked when Sky and Ren had first seen the horned man.

"It was after most of Alabaster ran out," Ren replied.

Goodwitch frowned. "After you called Miss Nikos?"

  
Ren looked to Sky, who was staring at a coffee mug like it was printed with all the secrets of the universe (or, knowing Sky, something boring about Dust mechanics). He glanced up, then back down. Nodded.

"What prompted that call, then?"

They described what had happened—seeing Weiss and Blake, the confrontation with the thug that had been with Junior, Sky's frantic call. Then Sky said, "I think I killed him."

There was a long, shocked pause. Ren put a hand on Sky's shoulder. "It was self defense."

"I'd assumed that much," Goodwitch said. Her voice was much softer than usual. "We'll look into the matter, obviously, but from what I've heard so far you did the best that you could and protected your partner."

Ruby realized she was staring at Sky and glanced away. She didn't want him to see the look on her face, mostly because she felt like it was still loading. Error, no input. Spinning wheel of death.

"If you ever need to talk to me, my office is always open." Goodwitch stood up. "I think the three of you should go back to your dorm. Rest. Don't even _think_ about reporting to your classes until tomorrow at the earliest. I need to get back to the Headmaster's office, but I may speak with you again at some point to verify a few more details."

She ushered them out of the room and into the hall, then swept away. On impulse, Ruby gave Sky a hug. He let his head fall onto her shoulder with a small thump and a pained whine.

"I miss the Grimm," Ruby said, to no one in particular. Both of her teammates nodded agreement.


	40. Covalent Bonds [1]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This arc is called Covalent Bonds because I am terrible at naming things and unable to resist a shitty chemistry pun.

The leaves were beginning to turn.

Yang had always loved autumn—she liked every season, even winter, but there was something about the way the treetops all looked like they were on fire that never failed to put her in a good mood. It was a little melancholic, maybe, because the leaves were dying and shriveling up, but they weren't going quietly. They were bursting into color, together, millions and billions at once, one last hoorah before they crumbled away.

Today, though, the beauty of the afternoon felt a little bit inappropriate. It had been two days since what Russel had dubbed the 'eye incident,' and they were at that weird stage where they were starting to shift their focus to other things—namely the Vytal Tournament—but it still felt wrong to be cheerful. This was especially true for BRYN. ABSW had all had serious brushes with death and one of them was now half blinded, and Yang had heard from Ruby that RSPR was still processing the fact that Sky had sort-of-accidentally killed the smirking creep they'd met fighting Junior. Pyrrha was acting weird, too, though she wasn't sure why. In other words, everyone else had been hit way harder than they had.

They were currently dealing with all this by lounging around a picnic table, enjoying the last of the heat. Or, well, she and Nora and Russel were enjoying it and Dove was talking about how he was looking forward to December. Nora looked him dead in the eyes and said, "You're a weirdo."

"It's not weird," he grumbled. "I'm wearing three layers."

"So take one off!" Russel broke into laughter. "It's not like we're gonna get attacked on the front lawn."

"Don't say that. Whenever you say that it always somehow manages to happen."

Yang folded her hands behind her head and stretched. The sky was a beautiful clear blue, scattered with a few wayward clouds and, in the distance, little specks that signified approaching airships. They would be the contestants from Atlas—Mistral and Vacuo had both arrived within the past few days.

"Do you ever wonder if the other academies are like this?"

Dove gave her a look—part exasperated, part amused. "Do you ever wonder if the other _teams_ are like this?" he shot back.

"Well, Alabaster and Raspberry—"

"Are as crazy we are," Dove said with finality. "And you can quote me on that."

Russel shook his head. "I still don't buy it. Well, maybe Alabaster, but why Raspberry? They only do stuff like that when there's a criminal to fight."

Dove shrugged. "Sure, but at least we own it."

_"You_ don't."

"Shut up, Russel. I still can't believe you told Ozpin his chair looks like a—"

"But it does!"

"You can't just _say_ that to the _Headmaster!"_

Russel rolled his eyes and propped his legs up on the table. Since the benches had no back, that essentially meant he was lying down with his head in the dirt. Yang wasn't sure if he'd gotten that habit from her or Nora, or maybe the three of them had all just slowly escalated in an arms race of weird seating positions. "I guess there is _one_ thing that I'll say about the relative sanity of the teams."

"What?" Nora asked, grinning.

"Even if we're the reckless ones, we've had maybe a tenth as many injuries. So, you know. Make of that what you will."

They sat in silence for a moment. It lasted until Nora clapped her hands together and said, _much_ too loudly, "I think I should buy some handcuffs. Yang, you in?"

Russel yelped and slipped off the bench, letting out an undignified squeak when his neck bent at a nasty angle. "Nora!"

"I told him," Nora said, folding her arms. "Seriously. I said I'd chain us together if he almost died without me again, so..."

Yang squinted at her. "That's a joke, right?"

_"Duh."_ She grinned. Then her expression turned thoughtful. "Well. Mostly."

"I'm taking that as a yes," Yang decided. "I definitely get it, though. But did you _see_ Ruby and Pyrrha fighting that guy?!" She sat up straighter on the bench. "It was _awesome!"_

"Oh, no." Russel hid his face behind his hand. "Poor Ruby. She's made an elder sibling proud. We weep for her."

"Jerk." Yang flicked his nose. He sneezed.

* * *

Two days. It had been _two days,_ and Cardin was still stuck in a hospital bed. He'd never heard of anything this stupid in his life—he had aura and a partner with healing powers. _Observation my ass._

"I can _walk,"_ he snapped, when a nurse offered him a pair of crutches. He got out of bed, wincing as he straightened up. His leg hurt. Not much, and _definitely_ not enough that he needed _crutches,_ but it hurt. Maybe it was petty, but he blamed his team. The stupidity had to be contagious—it was the only explanation. Slowly, stiffly, he hobbled into the bathroom and then back to his bed.

In the two or so minutes he'd been looking the other way, Jaune had appeared as if he'd been summoned by Cardin's annoyance. "Hey," he said, smiling. Cardin scowled at him.

"Tell them I'm healthy."

"You're limping."

Cardin crossed his arms over his chest, then shifted his weight so he was standing on one leg—his bad leg. It shook a little, but held him just fine. "The doc said the stiffness and crap should go away in a day or two."

"Just in time for the festival." Jaune looked unimpressed. _"Right._ I'm going to make sure she _actually_ said that."

"It's not _that_ unusual." Both of them turned to the other bed in the room, where Weiss had been asleep. "We _do_ heal faster than most people."

"Just FYI," Jaune said, holding up a finger. "That does not mean it's okay to almost die like this."

"I didn't almost _die—"_

"Like _that_ would kill me—"

Cardin and Weiss both suddenly found opposite sides of the room _fascinating._ Jaune snickered. _Moron_ _._

"Hmm..." On Weiss' other side, one of Blake's ears twitched. All three of them froze. She stirred again, bringing a hand up around her head where she'd leaned it on the edge of Weiss' bed. Then she went still.

"Nice going, short stack," Cardin whispered.

Weiss glared at him. "Excuse me? Who was it that—"

Jaune stood up. "I'm getting food for all of us. Don't wake Blake up until I get back, okay? It was hard enough to get her to take a nap in the first place."

"I'm not dumb," Weiss said, her eye narrowed.

Their leader walked out of the room, leaving the two of them basically alone. That had been happening a lot lately, which made things uncomfortable. He still didn't like her, he wasn't even sure he could say he liked _Jaune,_ it was just... well... how the fuck do you stay angry at someone you've seen covered in their own blood after losing an _eye?_

_"What?"_ she snapped. _Well, she's doing her best to help with that._ He shrugged and turned his head away.

After a few seconds, Cardin snuck another glance at his teammate. They'd taken off the bandages on her face, and instead had given her a plain white eye patch. It didn't cover the whole injury—there was a fine, straight line running out of the upper left and lower right corners, going pink and puckered now that it had healed a little. If the scars on his side, leg, and arm were any guide, it probably itched like a bastard.

He sighed. "Glad you didn't die." She'd probably fix that by the end of the year, sure, but... whatever.

Weiss shot him a suspicious look, before eventually saying, "Likewise."

Blake twitched again and mumbled something in her sleep. Both of them shut up—she hadn't left the room since one of the nurses had dragged her into a waiting area to sleep, and that had been almost eighteen hours ago. Jaune kept trying to make her eat, too. Sometimes he even succeeded. Cardin had long since gotten fed up with the hassle of it. _She's not the one who lost a body part._

There was a knock at the door. "Jaune," Weiss said, annoyed, "I told you to just—"

"May we come in?"

The doctor. "Of course." The door clicked open, admitting the woman Cardin recently learned was named Dr. Spruce. She wasn't alone, though. Weiss' old man was standing just behind her to her left, and Winter was next to him. The dad had a satisfied smile on his face, while the sister seemed tense.

Blake stirred, then sat up blearily. "What's..."

"Miss Schnee?" Spruce stepped into the room. "I've just had a talk with your father."

"I believe I can explain," he said, stepping forward. "I've contacted one of General Ironwood's people, a Dr. Yuriy. He's an expert in artificial limbs, and I've heard he works under Dr. Polendina."

Weiss considered him for a moment. "And?"

Her father smiled. "I believe you know what I'm getting at—he could easily make you something functional. Better than the original, even."

Cardin noticed that Winter seemed... annoyed? No. _Angry?_ He frowned. _Weird fucking family._

Blake glanced between father and daughter, her brow furrowing. Weiss seemed like she was weighing a problem—it was almost the same expression as the one she got in Applied Dust Mechanics. Cardin wondered if he was missing something. When you lose an eye and someone offers you an eye, usually you don't start making weird faces.

Then, Weiss sat up a little. "What's the catch?"

Spruce did a double-take. "Well, I assume it will be quite expensive, but—"

"There's no catch, Weiss." He bent down a little so that he was closer to her eye-level. "I want you to have the best possible care—"

"You wanted me to go home yesterday," she pointed out. "And the day before that, and the day before—"

"I still do." He ran a hand through his hair—it was the first nervous gesture Cardin had seen from him. "Do you know how terrifying it is to see your own daughter like... like _that?"_

Weiss hesitated. Her hand came up to trace the fresh scar, then fell back down. She bit her lip. "I'm—I wish it had happened differently."

"Then why must you _insist_ on putting yourself in the same position again?" He spread his hands helplessly.

"I'll be more careful next time." Winter visibly cringed at the idea of a 'next time,' but she didn't say anything.

Weiss' dad stepped forward and took her hand. She tugged it away, her jaw set. "Weiss, this isn't just some diversion before you take over the company anymore. It isn't a harmless rebellion against authority. You could have _died."_

Cardin figured Weiss would wince or look away or maybe mutter an apology. He did _not_ expect her to laugh. "What, you think I don't know that? I was _there,_ I _did_ notice the madman pointing a sword at me. I'm perfectly aware I've chosen a dangerous profession, but I'm willing to take the risk."

"This isn't a _game—"_

"Do you know?" Pleats of fabric spread out from where Weiss was gripping her sheets in both fists. "I tried to take a glass of water from one of the nurses this morning and knocked it out of her hand. I can't see out of my right eye, _at all._ That's more than enough of a reminder that this isn't a game."

"Which is it?" he snapped. "Have you just sustained a serious injury and are therefore fully aware of the consequences of your actions, or are you _perfectly fine_ and ready to face the danger that Beacon presents to you? You're contradicting yourself."

"I don't care."

"Weiss—"

"I don't _care."_ She set her jaw. "I'm not leaving, not even for a new eye."

All of a sudden her father's posture sagged. "It's not conditional on your returning home. Whether or not you decide to reconsider, I'm going to give you the best possible care."

She was silent for a moment, as if she was actually _thinking_ about it when the answer was blatantly obvious. Her expression was pained. Then, "No."

He rocked back on his heels, dumbstruck. "What?"

"I said no. I don't want it."

Blake's mouth fell open, and Cardin caught himself sharing a bewildered look with her. _What?!_

Her dad took a second to process that. "When you change your mind, you know how to get in contact." Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

The second he was gone, Jaune poked his head through the doorway. "Oh, come on. I leave for _five minutes—"_

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Cardin asked Weiss.

Jaune groaned. "Cardin—"

"It's a valid question!"

"Why not just take it?" Blake asked. Her voice was so quiet Cardin barely even heard it.

"Hang on, what?" Jaune looked around. "What happened?"

"Her dad offered her a better-than-new cybernetic eye," Cardin said, "and she said _no._ What the hell?"

Jaune did a double-take. "Huh?"

Weiss scowled. "Too many strings. It's a complicated machine I couldn't do the upkeep on myself, so I'd be completely reliant on him."

Blake frowned. "He said you didn't need to go back. Not for the eye."

"He did _say_ that. Whether or not he _meant_ it..."

"Are you sure? He seemed sincere to me, and I'm not exactly biased in his favor."

Weiss threw up her hands. "No, I'm not sure! For all I know that was an honest attempt to reach out to me that I just threw in his face, but I can't _tell._ Any gift like that... I wouldn't be able to help feeling indebted, finding reasons to go along with what he says. It's something he does to competitors."

"I'm proud of you." All four of them looked over at Winter. There was just the barest trace of a smile on her face. Then her expression turned stern. "And if you _ever_ do anything _that_ dangerous without backup again—"

"Understood," Weiss said, her voice a little higher than normal. "I'm sorry if I scared you."

"Scared would be a fantastic understatement." Winter strode over and kissed her on the forehead. When she pulled away, Weiss had the most ridiculous, dumbstruck expression on her face Cardin had ever seen. There were practically stars in her eye. He snickered. Blake glared at him, ears pulling back.

"I need to go," Winter said. "There are some things I have to deal with to prepare for the festival, but I'll be back as soon as I can. And I'll see what I can do on my end to get you in contact with that doctor—father isn't the only one who knows the general."

"Thank you."

Winter left the room, and Weiss slumped back against her pillows. Cardin gestured at Jaune. "Food. Now."

Jaune put the tray on a small plastic table between the two beds. "Just for that, I'm giving you yours last." He handed a plate to Weiss, then tried to give one to Blake. She shied away.

"I'm not really—" She cut off when she noticed Jaune and Weiss both glaring at her.

Cardin burst out laughing. "Better eat it before someone sticks you with an IV." She took the plate.

As he was digging into his own meal, a rubbery chicken patty and something he thought was probably puréed peas—Blake might have had the right idea—he looked over at the girls. "So. What the fuck?"

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Who was the guy who cut me up?" Blake and Weiss both glanced at each other.

"Hey, come on," Jaune said, spreading his hands wide. "Seriously? We all almost died and you aren't even going to tell us what that was about?"

Blake looked at the floor. "He was with the White Fang."

Cardin's mouth fell open. Then, "Are you one of them or something? Is that what all this weird shit has been about?"

"I'm _not_ with them. I... used to be."

Jaune groped behind him, found a plastic chair, and then collapsed into it. "Oh."

"Was that guy a _hitman?"_ Cardin started laughing again—he didn't think it was funny, exactly, but it was so insane that he couldn't help it. "You're being chased by a hitman!" Jaune let out a dismayed whine.

"He's not a hitman."

"We've been digging into something he wants kept secret," Weiss said, "so he lured us there to try and kill us."

Cardin snorted. "How is that not a hitman?"

"He wasn't paid."

Jaune put his head in his hands. "That's _not_ reassuring." He looked up, eyes going wide. "Wait. If he was trying to kill both of you, why... He was just standing there, he definitely could've... you know."

"I used to know him," Blake admitted.

Cardin stared at her for a moment and decided, "You have shit taste in friends."

"Hey!" Jaune and Weiss both said, at almost the same time. All three of them pretended not to notice that Blake needed to take a minute to recover after hearing it.

* * *

The edge of the roof met a brilliant sapphire sky, scattered with wisps of cotton-soft cloud. Trees below were dusted with the barest traces of red and gold among the green. They spread out in an endless sea beyond the edge of Beacon's campus, whispering softly in the afternoon breeze.

Pyrrha felt like she was looking at a painting. It was gorgeous, soothing, but she herself was apart from it, in the cold and sterile hallway of a museum. She was slumped with her back to the wall, where the door that led back inside was. Her arms were coiled around her stomach, her knees drawn up to her chest. It was still warm out, but when she held a hand up to her face, it shook.

"Magic," she murmured. She tightened her arms, hugging herself until she could barely breathe.

She'd always thought Ozpin was nice, if a little eccentric. He'd been the one to interject on behalf of RSPR and BRYN when they got into trouble, to point out that they'd helped or that their intentions had been good. Being alone with him was different. She'd been relieved when Goodwitch had returned—surely she would explain that this was nonsense, some esoteric religious belief of the Headmaster's, or else a bad joke. She hadn't.

_General Ironwood. The elevator. The Vault._

_Amber._

Pyrrha lurched to her feet and paced back and forth. This was insane—she couldn't just...

_'I'm afraid we are desperate, Ms. Nikos.'_

She could handle the powers. That was something she'd been doing all her life—ever since she'd discovered her semblance she'd had to learn how to keep a hold of her abilities, to shape them instead of letting them shape her. They'd never scared her. But someone else's _aura?_

A cold shiver ran down her back. It wasn't natural. And not in the way that airships or textiles or even Ruby's scythe were unnatural—it would be like... like tearing someone's heart out and using it to power a gun. Like letting someone reach into her brain and root around with bare fingertips.

Could she afford not to? There was an obvious danger, and Ozpin... he thought the person who had done that to Amber was the one pulling the strings on Roman Torchwick, on Junior and the White Fang. The one Sky had called Shoulder. The one he'd jumped over a railing to get away from. Some plan was in motion, and she didn't understand it well enough to guess what the damage might be.

Pyrrha wanted to talk to her team. Sky would panic, she was sure, but then he'd start writing down pros and cons and trying to work out other options. Ren always knew what to say to soothe away the fear, and Ruby had a gift for making bad situations feel a little less dark. But she couldn't—she'd promised the Headmaster to keep it secret.

_Four years,_ she thought. _I wanted four years with my friends, four years of taking classes and having fun and being a normal person._ Was that really too much to ask?

Her scroll buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket and read,

Atlas kids are here!

It was from Ruby. Pyrrha considered responding, then sighed and stashed the scroll back in her pocket. She headed for the door.

_Maybe there's something else I could do,_ she thought, as she pushed her way back inside. _Someone else who could—_ no. That wouldn't be right. She straightened up, moving down the stairs with her head held high. She didn't want to do this, she was sure of that, but she would _not_ try to push it on someone else. It was her responsibility, her burden to bear or refuse. Not to mention, when she imagined what other candidates there might be... Ozpin had already shown a special interest in Ruby when he let her attend early. _That,_ she decided, _will not happen._

She rounded the last corner and left the dorm building, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. There was a chill in the air, now, the first bite of autumn. _How appropriate._

"Pyrrha!" She looked up, startled, and found the rest of her team standing a few hundred yards away. Ruby was bouncing up and down, waving with both hands. She jogged over to join them.

"Hi!" Ruby beamed at her. "Where were you? We think Penny might be with the new group from Atlas. I mean, she's competing in the tournament, right? And obviously she didn't come on the airships with them but she's probably staying with them! Maybe?"

"Ruby." Ren put a hand on her shoulder. "Breathe."

"I'm just excited! The tournament is actually _starting!"_

"Here's hoping I don't mess up our chances of getting to the doubles," Sky said. He sounded a little sheepish, but the embarrassed grin that would normally accompany a remark like that was conspicuously absent. Ruby poked at his cheek, and he recoiled.

"Stop that! I told you, you're getting a lot better!"

"Kind of a low bar."

"I'll send you into the doubles," Ruby threatened, grinning to take the sting out of it. "I can do that, you know!"

That put a strained but genuine grin on Sky's face. He pretended to shudder. "Let's not do that to ourselves or the audience. Or Pyrrha."

"I'd be honored to fight with you," Pyrrha said, forcing a smile of her own.

Ruby cocked her head to one side, furrowing her brow. "Um, are you okay? You don't usually disappear like that."

"I was on the roof. I must have gotten lost in thought."

That seemed to worry her partner more, if anything. "Do you want to do something? I mean, like the ice cream thing?"

"I'd like to see Penny, if we can."

Ruby perked up a little at that, then hesitated. "Are you sure?"

Pyrrha nodded. "Lead the way."

They crossed the courtyard and walked onto the airfield, where a group of uniformed students were all congregated. Most seemed serious, dressed in shades of white and grey. One was giggling hysterically, hanging off the shoulder of a tall, dark-skinned man, with a bright pink tail coiling behind her.

"This is so cool!" Ruby brought both fists in front of her, practically vibrating with excitement. "We're gonna get to fight these people!"

Sky managed another weak grin. "You know? You're right, this _is_ exciting." All three of them turned to look at him, even Pyrrha. "What? It's low-stakes sparring, rather than, uh..." He trailed off, his expression growing distant.

"That's the spirit," Ren said, patting him on the shoulder.

Ruby hopped up, trying to see over the crowd. "Does anyone see—oh, hey!" She waved. "Penny! Over here!"

"Are they supposed to be in formation?" Sky asked, pointing at the assembled students. "Because it kind of looks like they're in formation."

"It's Atlas, though." Ruby looked puzzled. "Wouldn't they look more... you know... organized?"

There was a disturbance in the crowd as Penny squirmed out from between two other students and ran towards them. She was dragging another girl in her wake. "I finally get to meet you officially!" she said. Then she coughed. "I mean, hello strange people I've never seen before!" She hiccupped.

It was odd, seeing Penny in the Atlas uniform. Everyone there looked strangely faded, like the color had been leeched out of them. Pyrrha grabbed her wrist in her other hand and squeezed. "It's good to see you," she said. "Who is your friend?"

The other girl gave them a stiff half-bow. "Ciel Soleil."

"Oh!" Ruby turned and gestured at the rest of them. "I'm Ruby! This is Pyrrha, my partner, Sky, and Ren!"

"Where are your other teammates?" Sky asked.

"It's just us," Penny told him. "We're the first two-person team ever entered into the Vytal Festival!"

"That's so cool!" Ruby gestured at them. "I mean, with the—and the—! Wait, does—" she clapped a hand over her own mouth. "Never mind!"

Ciel narrowed her eyes critically. "They seem strange."

"Yes," Penny agreed, smiling. "Everyone at Beacon is weird."

Oddly enough, that didn't seem to endear them to Ciel. She brought a watch up in front of her, checked it, then glanced towards the group behind them. "We will be entering the school in approximately one minute and twenty-seven seconds, to be given a tour of the facilities."

Pyrrha exchanged a baffled look with her teammates. This was certainly... different.

"So." Ruby clapped her hands together. "Are you excited to be here?"

"No," Ciel said.

"I decline to state," Penny told them proudly, puffing out her chest. Ciel's eyes widened.

"You're the ones who got her doing that, aren't you?" She jabbed an accusatory finger at them.

Sky paled. "Uh... no comment?"

"I couldn't get a straight answer to anything for almost a week!" Ciel scowled, then checked her watch. Sighed. "Fifty-two seconds until our tour."

"So, Penny!" Ruby glanced at Ciel. "Is your teammate a, um, nuts and bolts kind of friend?"

Penny went pale green. "Oh! No, she's more of a... clockwork friend!"

"Thank you, ma'am." Ciel, annoyance apparently forgotten, inclined her head towards Penny. "Might I suggest returning to our places? There are now forty-five seconds until the tour."

"Oh. Alright."

"Bye Penny!" Ruby was still grinning. "We'll see you in the tournament!"

Penny nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! I think the phrase is, 'Prepare to lose.'"

Sky let out a little half-chuckle. "I'd say bring it on, but we all know how that would go."

"Pyrrha would totally win, though!" Ruby insisted, raising a finger skyward.

"It's on!" Penny declared. Then she giggled. "One of the other students taught me that one, too!"

They all stopped talking when they heard a throat being cleared. Pyrrha turned and flinched when she saw Ozpin standing by Beacon's front doors, a microphone in hand. "Welcome, students of Atlas," he said. "If you would all follow me?"

The rest of her team waved to Penny as she ran off to rejoin the crowd of Atlesian contestants, but Pyrrha felt like she was miles away. She tapped her left foot on the ground, wondering if part of that vault was right below her. Amber's blank expression came to mind, the web of scars across her face. _What did that to her?_

She was brought back to Remnant when Ruby nudged her elbow. "You sure you're okay?" Pyrrha nodded.

Sky came up on her other side and bumped her shoulder. "You're allowed to say 'no comment,' you know. If you don't want to have to lie."


	41. Covalent Bonds [2]

Blake traced the scar with her fingertips. It was smooth, arrow-straight, thin in a way that belied how deep the wound had been. The edges tapered away, turning into little more than a pale scratch where the very tip of the sword had cut her. Then it moved diagonally downward, running through her eyebrow. It continued uninterrupted along the eyelid, though it grew more jagged, zig-zagged, where the skin had been folded.

Her partner's eyes fluttered open. It was a shock, seeing them for the first time since the fight. One was the same clear blue it had always been, but the other had gone almost completely black. The pupil was blown wide, dilated until there was only a thin ring around it, and clouded in the center. If Blake looked carefully, she though she could see the seam.

"You're really close," Weiss pointed out, leaning back a few inches.

Blake stepped back and dropped her gaze to the floor. "Sorry."

They hadn't been alone since it happened—it was only this afternoon that their team had been released from the hospital, and they were still settling back into the dorm. Jaune had run off to collect food from the cafeteria, taking Cardin with him. When and how those two had started getting along so well, Blake didn't care to speculate.

There were a thousand things she should be saying now that she had the chance, but they jumbled together once she opened her mouth. She considered going in for a hug, but she'd literally _just_ been told that she was too close.

"Sorry," she said again.

"It's not that I mind." Weiss reached out and started fiddling with the eye patch, which was lying on the bed next to her. "The problem is more that I _don't_ mind."

"Oh. Right." Blake cringed even as she said it, feeling unbearably stupid.

Weiss glanced around the room, and it struck her that the injured eye wasn't quite following the motion. It was close, but sometimes it would drift too far to the left or right. On impulse, she blurted out a third, "Sorry."

Her partner tried to flick her forehead, but underestimated the distance and ended up shoving her head back. She huffed irritably. "Stop apologizing. It's not like you were the one who cut me."

"Well, if _that's_ the bar you're setting—" Blake stopped herself. "I don't—I shouldn't have snapped at you, I just..."

"It's been a stressful few days," Weiss said dryly.

Blake sat down next to her, about a foot away, with the eye patch in between them. "I should have realized he might be there. I should have noticed that Perry dropped that note on purpose. I should have warned you about his semblance—"

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," Weiss said. Then she froze. "Never, _ever_ tell anyone from Brine I said that."

"I won't."

"My point is, there are a lot of things we should have done better. I probably shouldn't have provoked him, but it's not like we can change any of that at this point."

"I know." She sighed, brushing her hair back out of her eyes.

"I stand by what I said when all of this started—I was a target for this sort of thing long before we even met."

"I know."

"And anyway, this isn't the first time something like this has happened." Weiss tapped the scar over her left eye. "I seem strangely prone to—"

Blake leaned sideways and wrapped both arms around her shoulders. She went stiff for a second—just like the first time they'd done this. Unlike then, she didn't relax, and instead started to pull away. Reluctantly, Blake let go.

"Sor—"

"Don't." Weiss smiled, but the expression looked a little forced. "It's not... I can deal with it, just not when it's that... close."

Blake winced. She'd forgotten about that. Again. "I'm sorry—" Weiss made a face at her. "—I just... can't." It felt lame even as she was saying it.

"Right, the..." Weiss made a vague fluttering movement with her hand. "Right."

"It's not because you're anything like him. You aren't."

"That's certainly a relief."

She hadn't been able to help making comparisons. They were obviously nothing alike when they were calm—Weiss was usually blunt, direct, snippy or sarcastic when she was irritated, which was often. Adam was warm, charming, full of easy smiles and willing to jump in front of a train if it meant making things better for their people. But where Weiss would spend all her anger at once in a fiery tirade, he could never get it out of him. He'd storm and rage and get into fistfights with Atlesian guards, but the harder he tried to let it all loose, burn himself out, the more it seeped under his skin and festered there.

Blake let her hands fall into her lap, twisting around one another. "I always end up hurting people I get close to. I don't mean to, it just... happens."

Weiss let out an aggravated sigh. "Would you say I'm the sort of person who will ignore insult or injury?"

"No, but—"

"Blake." She tapped the scar over her right eye. "You didn't do this. Trust me, if I think you've done something to hurt me, _you will know._ In fact, you'll recall that I'm quite vocal on the subject."

"Well, yes..."

"I want to know if you want to go out with me. Not whether or not you think it's _safe,_ okay? And if you don't, that's fine. I'll deal with it. Even if you think you do, but it's too soon after everything that happened or you just aren't comfortable, that's _fine._ But I don't need to be protected from you. I'm perfectly capable of handling myself."

Weiss smiled. She blinked a few times, then closed her good eye, leaving only the dark, empty one. "This is... inconvenient, obviously. I wish it hadn't happened the way it did. But it's hardly the end of me."

Blake stared at her for a second, at a complete loss for words. She wanted to protest—it wasn't just _inconvenient_ losing an eye, and what if something like this happened again? But that hadn't really been the point, had it. _I don't need to be protected from you._

"Yes," she decided.

Weiss blinked. "What?"

"We should go into Vale later. Together."

"Wha—Oh. _Oh."_

"Or maybe the festival? It might be crowded, but they have food from all over the world."

"That... sounds good." Weiss nodded jerkily. "Yes. How about... after the doubles? We can celebrate our victory." She tried for a haughty expression, but was starting to turn red.

Blake couldn't help but smirk. "You were expecting a no, weren't you."

"No! Well, I mean—"

The door to the dorm clicked open. Cardin strode through with a tray full of food, then paused to look at them. His eyes narrowed. It occurred to her that they were sitting rather close together, and they probably both looked flustered. He just snorted.

"Get a room."

"Huh?" Jaune wandered in behind him, his eyebrows furrowed. "We're _in_ the room, what're you—" He took in the scene and froze. "Uh... we could come back?" He started to retreat, but Cardin didn't seem to have gotten the message. He walked right up to Weiss and held up a box of cereal.

"It's almost noon," she said, sounding affronted. "What are you—" Then she took in the box. It was a brand called _Rum-n'-Raisin,_ and the mascot was a grizzled-looking pirate. Slowly, she panned her gaze back up to his face. His smug grin faltered a little.

"I suppose you _did_ save our lives," she said grudgingly. "I'll give you one week. Do something like this after next Monday and I'll freeze you to the ceiling."

He stared at her. "That's all your life is worth?"

"I'm afraid the rest was spent settling all the debt you incurred over the past year. She snatched a plate with scrambled eggs and sliced tomatoes off the tray.

While they were eating, Jaune got up and stood in the center of the dorm. "Okay," he said, clapping his hands together.

"Are you going to do a speech?" Weiss asked. He went a little pink.

"I'm just saying... it's been a harrowing year. This whole tournament thing honestly feels a bit anticlimactic, considering everything else that happened. So I think we're mostly just in it for fun."

"Speak for yourself," Cardin said, flicking a candy wrapper at him. "Some of us want to win."

"We've got our strategy—"

"We do?" Weiss raised her eyebrows.

"It's to get you and Blake to the doubles," Jaune explained. Cardin scowled, but he didn't say a word. Not even a grumpy comment about Weiss' injury holding them back. Blake tried to imagine how that would have come about, and failed. Jaune must have talked to him. At this point she was starting to think the only logical explanation was that he had blackmail.

Then she paused, realizing that their entire strategy could be summed up in a sentence, and raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"We didn't have time for anything else!"

"Right," Cardin drawled. "So we have no plan, and no one really cares."

Jaune grinned sheepishly. "Go team?"

* * *

Ren wasn't even surprised when RSPR was one of the first two teams drawn. A little frustrated, maybe, because he'd been hoping to get a sense of how the arena worked before he was thrown into it, but not surprised. He was having also a hard time worrying about the outcome. Their opponents wouldn't murder them—and that was where the bar had been set recently.

The others were significantly less relaxed. Ruby tripped over her chair trying to get up and head for the ring, and Sky turned a sickly pale color that Ren was sure couldn't be healthy. After a moment's consideration, he laid a hand on each of their shoulders and let his semblance drape itself over them like a warm blanket. Both let out little sighs of relief.

"Thanks, Ren!" Ruby beamed at him. Then she glanced at the arena. "Oh come on, I'm already nervous again!"

"It's the same as what we've been doing," Pyrrha said gently.

Sky shook his head rapidly. "Now there are spectators. A lot of spectators."

Pyrrha chuckled at that. "They won't eat you, I promise. You forget they're even there."

He grumbled something that sounded like, "I doubt that," but followed after Ruby without further complaint.

Ren found that he _did_ get more apprehensive as they approached the ring. He thought it was probably something about the way the audience was now above them, rather than at eye-level—it gave a powerful impression of being a quartet of hair follicles under a microscope.

"Ah!" Professor Port's voice boomed out from above them. "Starting things off with a bang, aren't we?"

The crowd _howled._ As subtly as he could, Ren reached out and gave Ruby and Sky each another touch of his semblance. Perhaps it was unwise to reveal it in front of the opposition, but he couldn't imagine how it might be useful in combat with other people, so he decided not to worry about it. Either way... it appeared _one_ of their reputations preceded them.

"That's right!" Oobleck chimed in. "On the one hand we have first-year team Pastel of Shade!"

"And on the other, we have more first years..." Port paused, milking the moment. "Beacon's own, _Raspberry!"_ Another raucous cheer.

Sky snickered. "Yes," he whispered. "Fear us, for we are... _Raspberry."_ He wiggled his fingers menacingly. Ruby clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a giggle.

The other team was obviously not pleased to be called up in the very first match to fight Pyrrha Nikos. Their expressions only darkened at what they probably interpreted as careless arrogance—cracking jokes just before the fight. Sky edged away from them a little.

"I don't think I want to fight that guy," he whispered.

Ren could hardly blame him. Their leader was an absolute bear of a man, at least seven feet tall and built of solid muscle. He had on a set of plate armor, and a sword to match his size. A red and gold lion emblem was painted across his breastplate, and the visor of his full-face helmet was up to show his face. According to the screen above them, his name was Magnus. To his left and right, his teammates looked almost like dolls by comparison. One, Lily, was obviously an archer, with a bow already in her hands and a quiver hung at her hip. Slung across her shoulders was a hooded half-cape made from golden fur. On the tall man's other side was a slip of a girl barely five feet tall, identified as Claire, with another lion forming the buckle of her belt. Not intimidating on her own, but she had a bandolier of Dust vials and a thin staff that was glowing bright green.

"He is rather large," Ren replied.

"Huh?"

He looked at Sky, confused. "Hang on, who _did_ you mean?"

Sky pointed to the last teammate, Svalinn. The only real adornment on him was a patch in the shape of a shield on his chest, quartered red and gold. He was hanging back a little, and as far as Ren could tell he was completely unarmed. Perhaps he was still a dangerous opponent—some were quite skilled with hand-to-hand combat—but... he wasn't holding himself in any particular stance. He was just standing, arms at his sides, as if waiting. Ren supposed that was evidence enough that he had some trick up his sleeve, but he couldn't for the life of him guess as to what.

He turned to Sky. "What makes you say that?"

Sky shrugged. "I don't know. He freaks me out." Ren could see goosebumps on the back of his neck.

Before he could press him, there was a light _ding_ from above them, and landscapes began flashing by. Eventually each half of the arena settled—a field of tall grass on their opponents' side, a forest on theirs.

"Ready!" Oobleck called out.

Port let out a hearty chuckle. "Begin!"

The second the official word was given, Magnus took off like a shot. He sprinted towards them, sword swinging, while the other three fanned out behind him. Lily began firing arrows—one landed at Ruby's feet with a burst of flame, and two more flew towards Pyrrha. Their heads were electric yellow. Instead of blocking with her shield, she ducked sideways, letting them pass harmlessly over her head. When they collided with the ground behind her, each let out a warning crackle.

Before they could counter her, Magnus was upon them. Just before he collided head-on with Ruby, his teammate Claire gestured with her staff and shot him in the back. He glowed a brilliant, deep purple. His sword flew out in a wide arc. Ruby ducked and rolled between his legs. Then she scattered into a burst of red, flying towards Claire.

Sky was the next in line for Magnus' charge. He held his ground, gritting his teeth as he redirected the first swing and used the opportunity to slip the head of his halberd into the spot under his opponents arm where there was a chink in his armor. The next swing of the sword came towards his head. He ducked, slashed at the giant's knees. Magnus then broke away from him, turning towards Pyrrha.

Ren began taking potshots at Lily while he waited to see Magnus and Pyrrha clash. He was monstrously strong, probably due in part to whatever Claire had just done to him, but Pyrrha seemed equal to the task of dodging or redirecting his attacks. With that settled, he charged at the archer.

He was only halfway there when Ruby shouted, "Poppy!" It took him a fraction of a second to realize that was directed at him, and he immediately turned around and put up both palms. When he saw the flash of red, he pushed out. His leader bounced off his hands and into the air, then arced down onto Claire. A hefty sliver of her aura bled away—the first strike of the match.

After that, Ren focused his attention on the archer. He'd grasped the most basic element of their strategy—they intended to send Magnus in to hold all the attention and tank all of the hits, while giving him boosts and covering fire from the background. He just wasn't sure how Svalinn was supposed to fit into that. Either way, Pyrrha was handling the giant. All the rest of them had to do was knock out his support.

A glance behind him showed that Sky had approached Svalinn. He was poking at him with the halberd, but calling it a _fight_ would be misleading. For some reason, he seemed hesitant to get close, and the other boy was hardly even reacting except to back away when it seemed like he might be hit.

He shook his head and pressed Lily back another few steps. She was quick on her feet, using her bow to block, and when he'd gotten close she'd pulled a knife from a sheathe at her hip. Neither of them had landed a strike yet, but he had the sense that he was a little bit faster. Even so, he wouldn't be able to finish this quickly. He whistled—their signal to Ruby that they could use some assistance, but not urgently. A few seconds later, she called out, "Pyrrha! Switch!"

That had _not_ been his plan, but he went with it. Pyrrha passed within inches of him, and he could hear the clash as Lily knocked her javelin away with her bow. In front of him was the colossus, the purple glow around him now fading. He swung two-handed, and Ren rolled sideways.

Behind him he heard a thump and a cry of pain, and Ruby shouted for them to, "Switch!"

Ren returned to the fight with Lily just as she was regaining her feet, shaking her head in a daze. He kicked out at her solar plexus, then ducked down and fired at her stomach when she lifted her bow to intercept. She was flustered by the sudden change, and before she could regain the initiative he hooked one of the blades of his guns through her bow and pulled. It came free and bounced behind him. She lowered herself into a crouch and brandished the knife, but he had now two weapons to her one. Before much longer, he whittled her aura down into the red.

When he turned around, Pyrrha was no longer engaging Magnus. He was surrounded by an electric-yellow halo, and was dueling with Ruby at speeds that were difficult to track. Unfortunately for his team, that meant that Pyrrha was free to handle Claire.

She backed up a few paces and shot at Pyrrha, who raised her shield to block—but the effect went straight through both metal and aura. Which, as it soon turned out, was because it hadn't been a negative effect at all. Pyrrha straightened up, then charged, now glowing the same brilliant purple that Magnus had been. The moment the effect took hold, the yellow glow around the giant faded and he took a nasty slash across his chest.

Pyrrha darted towards Claire, drew her arm back—and Svalinn threw himself in front of the attack. He made no attempt to block or redirect it. Instead he held his hands out wide and let the javelin connect with his chest. He himself showed no reaction, but Pyrrha jerked backwards and fell to one knee, nearly a third of her aura draining away.

The crowd erupted. Pyrrha had been partially right—it was easy to forget about them in the heat of the moment, but they had a way of making themselves known at inconvenient times.

Claire leveled her staff again, this time towards Magnus—who was faring about as well as could be expected now that he had only a fraction of the speed of his opponent. Ren tensed, then jumped into the projectile's path as she fired. His heart lurched, and the world went strangely still, as though he were caught in honey. He made it all the way up to her and landed several slashes with his guns before she managed to redirect her semblance back to Magnus. Before he could press her further, Svalinn stepped in between them, his arms still stretched wide. Ren backed away, trying to circle around him.

That was, until Sky tackled him. Both went down in a tangle of limbs, and his partner yelped in pain when Svalinn hit the ground. Ren suspected he might have deliberately dropped his aura— _that could be deadly in another sort of fight._ But, as it was, Sky had opted to simply wrap both arms around their opponent's shoulders and not let go. He wasn't physically string enough to break the hold, and it wasn't technically _hurting_ him, either.

Ren paused for a moment, thinking. Sky had known. Even before the match had started, he'd pointed to the least threatening member of their team and _known_ he was dangerous. He shook his head and set that aside for later.

Claire's eyes widened when she realized that her teammate was no longer between her and Pyrrha, who was just then getting to her feet. She held out the staff in front of her, now glowing bright green. When she fired, Ren slid out of the way—he wasn't entirely sure she could create negative effects as well as positive ones, and if she could then he didn't know why she hadn't before now, but it was best not to take chances.

Before he and Pyrrha could converge on her, Ruby called out, "Cranberry!" Her partner turned away for a moment to fire a few shots with her rifle. Ren darted forward and engaged Claire. She swung her staff left and right, blocking his first slashes, then tripped over Sky and Svalinn. Ren kicked one leg out from under her and she went down, rolling a few feet before popping up again. Another few shots while she was unbalanced, and she went into the red.

Ren had only just turned towards Magnus when the blue glow around him vanished. Pyrrha shot twice, once at each of his heels, sending him reeling. Ruby closed in, scoring a z-shaped pattern across his exposed torso and finishing him off with a vicious underhand swing. He collapsed backwards into the dirt, panting, as the buzzer sounded.

As one, Ren, Ruby, and Pyrrha all turned to where Sky and Svalinn were squabbling. Ruby scratched her head. "So, um... how are we supposed to...?"

Sky struggled to his knees, gripping his opponent's collar in one hand, and charged towards the edge of the arena. Svalinn was dragged behind him, kicking and struggling all the way, before Sky gently but firmly pushed him off the arena. Then he turned around and dusted his hands together, beaming with pride.

The applause was _deafening._

* * *

Russel could hear the crowd shouting from the bathroom. He froze halfway through washing his hands, his head turning in the general direction of the stadium. _The hell?_ He'd wandered off once RSPR's fight was over and it became clear that his team wouldn't be next. When he finally reemerged into the stands, part of him wanted to turn right back around.

He wasn't sure if it was a rowdy crowd, or if the fact that the very first fight had contained Pyrrha Nikos had amped up the cheering. What he _was_ sure of was that it was definitely _weird_ for this much of the noise to be booing. Craning his neck to look at the screens, he recognized the mouthbreathers Cardin had been hanging out with—past-tense, thank the gods. He still had no idea what the hell was going on, so he picked his way back to the spot where his team had gathered. RSPR were there, too, holding bowls of soup and noodles. ABSW apparently hadn't gotten back from settling in at their dorm yet. Russel plopped down and stole one of Sky's saltines.

"The hell's going on?" he asked. Sky slapped halfheartedly at his hand, but he snaked it back and popped the cracker into his mouth.

"Ermine is fighting Team Sun," Dove explained. "Take a look at their leader."

Russel squinted. Tall, blond, open shirt— _tail._ "Oh."

"They're first-years like us," Ruby said miserably. "So..."

"They're getting destroyed," Russel finished. He winced as a red-haired boy was smashed over the head by one of Ermine's group with what looked like a sledgehammer.

Ren cleared his throat. "They're actually quite impressive, considering the two-year gap. Ermine's leader is already out, but team Sun lost one too."

Even as Russel watched, the guy with the tail kicked his opponent off the edge of the arena. He stuck his pinkies in his mouth and let loose the loudest, shrillest, most obnoxious whistle he could muster.

That was the last fun moment of the fight, unfortunately. It ended in ERMN's favor, with them down their leader and the boy who'd been kicked out of the ring. Russel could _hear_ their Professors struggling to hold onto their professionalism—Oobleck in particular sounded like every word of praise for the victors was being extracted with tweezers. A bit more than half of the crowd was booing and jeering, some even standing up on their seats. Others, he was disgusted to see, were throwing fists into the air and cheering as loudly as they had for RSPR.

"I hope we get them in the doubles," Russel said. "If anyone deserves to fight Yang and Nora at the same time, it's them."

"Aw!" Nora clapped her hands to her face. "That's so sweet!"

Yang raised her hand. "So, how many bones—"

"None." Dove sighed. "As tempting as that is..."

"You're, um... definitely sending Yang and Nora then?" Ruby asked, looking slightly nervous.

Russel scoffed. "You have Pyrrha. Tough."

"Most of the time teams from the same school don't compete until near the end," Sky interjected. "So we probably won't get to fight Ermine. And it'll be whoever you send in the singles that has to fight Pyrrha."

Dove glanced at Yang and Nora, as if he was expecting one of them to shout, 'Not it!' Instead, both were grinning in eager anticipation. Russel felt a little bad for the competition. Well, _most_ of the competition. Ermine could go hang.

"Well." Oobleck's voice returned, still sounding put out. "It's time for our last match of the afternoon." The usual roulette wheels began to spin. Russel stood halfway out of his seat, crossing his fingers.

"First-year team Alabaster, of Beacon!" Port announced.

"And, if I do say so myself," Oobleck added, "A wonderful example of cooperation despite their differences."

Port chortled—he obviously hadn't forgotten the start of the year. Russel looked around a bit anxiously. Were ABSW even at the arena yet? Then he spotted them hurrying towards the ring, looking as if they'd just come from outside.

"And," Port continued, "for their opponents, we have another team of first-years, this one Yarrow of Atlas!" Yarrow was spelt JARO. Russel wondered if the headmasters of all the different academies had a shitlist of students with stubborn names that just wouldn't fit into an anagram. Hell, it was probably Yang's fault they got _Brine_ instead of something cooler. What were you supposed to do with an X and a Y?

The massive screen flashed between the two teams, showing them standing to attention in the as-yet-blank ring. During the brief clip of Yarrow, Russel noticed one of them whispering something to her teammate, who smirked and leaned towards the girl on his other side. Cut to ABSW, looking more relaxed than any other team he'd watched so far. Even Jaune held himself with the easy confidence of someone who has recently been threatened by someone a _lot_ scarier than JARO.

Around the eight combatants, the terrain rose into place—a shallow pool of water scattered with islands behind JARO and a towering mountain behind ABSW. Overhead, storm clouds began to gather. Nora's mouth opened slightly, like she'd just had an entire cake plopped down in front of her and had no idea how to react.

"Sorry, Nora," Yang said. "I don't think our luck is that good."

"It could happen!"

"Ready," Oobleck called out.

"Fight!" finished Port.

Russel leaned forward a bit, ignoring the screens for a moment so that he could watch ABSW spreading out. Jaune and Cardin took the front, with Weiss a little further back and Blake off to the right. A yellow glyph popped up under Cardin, and he raised his mace.

JARO began to circle right, around towards Blake, coming a little closer as they went. Jaune and Cardin both led the charge, swinging wildly and crashing into the other team.

"My guess is that they're trying to find out what Yarrow can do," Dove said. "Test it out on Jaune and Cardin first, since they can usually take a hit and, well, they probably aren't going to be the ones dealing the most damage."

"Cardin could," Ruby pointed out. "I mean, if he could actually hit something."

"Hence the haste glyph," Sky added.

"So, hypothetically," Russel said, "What would you do if you were Yarrow?"

Ruby frowned. "Um, I don't know what any of Yarrow could do. But if it was me and my team and they did that, I'd probably wait for Cardin to slow down before I dealt with him. Blake and Weiss are the bigger threats, plus they work together a lot better now, so I'd split them up."

"Ruby..." Yang sounded amused. "Maybe don't talk strategy with a rival team?"

Ruby laughed. "C'mon, by the time our teams are fighting each other it'll be the singles."

"And we all know how _that's_ going to go," Sky added, grinning. Pyrrha turned bright red.

Nora jabbed a finger at her. "Bring it on! I've been wanting to spar with you for like forev—"

"What the hell?" All of them turned to stare at Dove, who had stood up from his seat. Then out into the arena, where he was looking. JARO definitely hadn't tried to follow the same strategy Ruby had suggested—from what Russel could see, all of them were targeting Blake.

"Oh, come on," Yang said, disgusted. "We _just_ had Ermine."

Russel hopped up onto his seat, cupped both hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey, Yarrow! The rest of the team is _that way,_ you fu—" Dove grabbed him by the ankle and yanked him back into his seat.

"For the sake of my ears," he said, "Please stop."

The smallest of team JARO, a girl by the name of Frysa, lashed out with a whip and managed to trip Blake up. In the half-second she was off-balance, a hulking man with an utterly unpronounceable name—Avskyvärd?—landed a punch to her gut that sent her stumbling backward. Her aura ticked down.

During the last fight, Russel hadn't really known what was going on when he heard the crowd going nuts. This time, he could see both action and reaction. The attack landed, and a chorus of boos and jeers clashed with frenzied cheers. He swallowed hard.

The screens showed a shot of ABSW as they rallied around Blake. Their casual, relaxed attitude had evaporated. All four of them were rigid with anger, but with their heads high, their shoulders straight. Weiss looked about ready to murder someone—she'd always been good at that expression, but the new scar definitely didn't hurt. Cardin was pointing at the other team. His mouth moved, but the actual words were inaudible from this distance. Judging by JARO's reactions, he was being about as charming as usual. Blake had regained her balance, now. Her ears were flicking back and forth, almost as if she wanted to emphasize them. Jaune reached out and touched her shoulder, and the bar below her portrait ticked back up into the green. More cheers, more boos.

"Hey." Russel turned to his team and RSPR and grinned. "How many of Yarrow does it take to change a lightbulb?"

Yang blinked. "I don't know. How many?"

"All four. They can't touch anything without surrounding it first." Dove snorted, then tried to cover it with a cough.

Russel watched the ensuing fight with vicious pleasure. ABSW wasn't the flaming wreck they had been in the beginning of the year—even Jaune was holding his own. He drove one of JARO, a red-faced boy named Rudy, partway up the mountain. Then he whistled and leapt clear. Blake leapt off a glyph, settled next to Ralph on the ledge, then flipped back to the ground, leaving behind a fiery afterimage that blasted the boy twenty feet and drained the rest of his aura in one go.

On the opposite side of the field, the big guy with the impossible name was going head to head with Cardin. Weiss cast a haste glyph under him again, and occasionally more barriers would pop up to block his opponent's punches. Meanwhile, his usual ponderous windups were smoothed away, and he landed blow after blow. Each one knocked a solid chunk away from the guy's aura. Desperate, he lashed out with both hands at Cardin's chest. He just stood there, motionless, and the attack bounced off him with a _clang._ His aura dipped a little, but not _nearly_ as much as it should have. He smirked, then drove the giant into the red.

Another of JARO, Frysa, shouted something and charged at Weiss. She raised her rapier to block the whip, but the movement was just a little off. On screen, Russel could see that she'd tried to draw her head back and out of the way, but had underestimated how close the whip was and took a hit to one cheek. She retreated, her good eye narrowing, then flicked the chamber of her sword and cast a third haste glyph—this time on herself. Platforms popped up all around Frysa, and she flashed rapidly from one to another. She took exactly two hits before her opponent ran out of aura. Once, she overshot one of the platforms, stumbled, and was struck across the back. The other happened just before Frysa went down, when she made a final last desperate attack and Weiss' barrier appeared too far away from her, letting the whip bend around it and hit her on the upper arm.

Jill, JARO's leader, was the last standing. She was still stubbornly engaging Blake, striking out with an ice pick. Cardin started to move towards her, but Jaune put a hand out in front of him. Weiss stopped next to them, her rapier still up, her free hand hanging loosely at her side. They could step in if they needed to, but this wasn't just a fight anymore—it was a statement.

Blake pressed Jill all the way to the water's edge, forcing her to retreat until she was in up to her calves and her footwork was ruined. Then she landed a kick to her chin. Jill kicked up spray as she stumbled. Calmly, Blake stepped into the water, then hopped back out. Her afterimage flashed bright white, then sent tendrils of electricity crackling along the surface of the pool. Jill toppled to her hands and knees, panting. The buzzer sounded.

As Blake looked up, the camera caught her expression. It wasn't vindictive, like Weiss' was. It wasn't excited, like Jaune's, or smug like Cardin's. Her mouth was flat, her eyes scanning the crowd, her ears pinned back against her skull.

The crowd roared and stomped, some standing up on their chairs. Howls of fury and excited cries melded together into white noise. It didn't escape Russel's notice that some of the ones cheering were from the defeated Atlas—and some of the hecklers were citizens of Vale.


	42. Covalent Bonds [3]

Dove's teammates were definitely contagious. There was no other explanation.

He'd never been interested in battle for its own sake. He would fight to protect people, to drive back the Grimm, and also because he would eventually need to feed himself. That was all. There was some basic satisfaction in killing a Beowolf or an Ursa, but he didn't really revel in it.

This, though?

"Nora! Left!" His teammate saluted merrily and charged off around one side, swinging with reckless abandon. Her target, a boy called Palomino, deflected the blow with his staff and winced from the force of it. That left him off-balance, something Yang was quick to capitalize on. She drove him back until he ran into a glacier and was knocked all the way through it. The sound of the buzzer mixed with shattering ice. Russel darted around the other side, slashing the team leader, Marie, across the ribs. Electricity arced across her torso on contact, and she crumpled sideways, eliminated. Her mallet landed in a puddle of melted ice.

There was something about the setup—sending Yang in to meet their advance, Nora to scatter them, him and Russel to keep them separated. Anticipating enemy moves, countering... well. Fighting could be fun.

The last two had regrouped until they were standing back to back, looking at one another in alarm. The taller of the two, a girl named Brazier, flicked her hand and sent a wave of fire through the air to drive Russel backwards and away from them. Her teammate, Louise, kicked at Yang's chest with a spiked boot.

"Russel," he called out. "Light her up!"

Both girls tensed, but he hadn't been talking about them. Russel twisted the handle of one of his daggers, setting it to sparking and sizzling. Then he leaped, soaring fifteen feet into the air, and tossed the knife at Nora. She caught it point-first, grinning wildly as her hair stood on end. Her next attack hit Louise, knocked her into Brazier, and sent the latter careening across the arena until she collided with a sturdy tree truck. Louise recovered enough to climb up into the higher branches, but Russel beat her to the top by jumping, swinging himself higher, and then returning to normal weight just as he set down next to her. The branch they were standing on snapped, and she landed heavily on the ground with her aura spent while he drifted back down like an autumn leaf.

Dove stood back, basking in the cheering of the crowd. He drew an arm up to wipe the sweat from his brow. Nora jumped him from one side and nearly knocked him over—it wasn't malicious, she did it to Ren too, but he pushed her off anyway. Between her and Yang he was one surprise poke in the ribs away from printing out a dictionary definition of _personal space_ and nailing it to their dorm room door.

BRYN left the arena in high spirits. They wouldn't have their doubles match just yet—they and MGLD (pronounced Marigold, though Russel insisted on calling them Mangled) were the last two full teams to compete, but they wouldn't have their doubles match immediately afterward—there was an hour-long break in the matches so that the contestants could eat and enjoy the fairgrounds. Not that it would have been _that_ much of a problem. It wasn't as if his teammates lacked energy. Ever.

As they moved through the stands, Dove realized with a start that they were passing within feet of Velvet. Her team had advanced to the next round—which was the polite way of saying that the four of them had made one of their opponents cry. Not that he could blame them. Velvet, much like Blake, had been on the receiving end of less-than-sportsmanlike conduct from another team.

"Well done, Brine!" Velvet said as they approached, smiling and waving. He waved back—maybe a little bit awkwardly, but the thought was there.

"The same to you." He stepped a little closer, so that they wouldn't be overheard. "By the way, about the... are you going to go?"

She frowned for a moment, puzzled. Then her expression cleared. "Oh, yes. Me and Yatsu."

"Should you be telling the competition that?" asked another of her teammates, this one a redhead. He snickered. "Nah, firsties. Never mind."

"It's not like we're going to get paired with them in the doubles," Coco pointed out. "And, yeah, firsties."

"That's ageist," Russel huffed, crossing his arms.

"Give it a year," Coco drawled. "You'll see."

During the lunch break, all twelve of their first-year group headed out to the fairgrounds. It was decided that, in order to maximize their enjoyment of the festival—Ruby's words, not his—they should split off into their three teams to wander around. Then, later, they could all play the best games, eat the best food, and generally get the highlights of the experience. Divide and conquer.

RSPR charged off almost immediately—or rather, Ruby charged off and the rest followed after her. ABSW moved to follow, but Weiss hung back.

"You go on ahead," she said. "I'll only be a moment."

With confused shrugs from the boys and a questioning look from Blake, they began moving west towards the concession stands. Dove cleared his throat. "Er, what—"

"Did you do the thing?!" Nora demanded.

Weiss straightened up, cleared her throat, and said, "Nora?"

_"Yes?"_

"You're a genius."

Nora let out a delighted squeak and began bouncing up and down. Dove scratched his head. "What exactly is going on here?"

"She did the thing!" Nora cheered. Then she paused. "I mean, I can't actually tell you what the thing is. Unless I can?"

Weiss shrugged carelessly, but she was also staring fixedly at her shoes. "If you like."

Yang looked from her, to Nora, and back to Weiss, then burst out laughing. "Oh my god!"

"What?" Russel demanded. "All I'm getting is weird looks."

"Did..." Yang seemed to be having trouble getting her breath back. "Did you ask Nora for dating tips?"

Dove shared an incredulous look with Russel. _Surely not..._

Weiss was turning a little red, but she put on a defiant look and squared her jaw. "What? You're the one who said she's good with this sort of thing, and her advice worked last time, so..."

"Oh, well, yeah," Russel said. "She's super good with people stuff. But..."

Nora whirled on him. "What do you mean, _but?"_

"Least qualified person to offer relationship advice," Yang finished. "Ever."

"Hey!" Nora punched her in the arm. She was trying to look angry, but her mouth kept twitching at the corners.

"I'm sorry, but it's true!"

Weiss was starting to get the same look of horror she'd worn when Dove had first told her the anonymous 'friend-making plan' was actually Nora's. "It's probably fine," he reassured her. "Just, er... do as she says, not as she does."

"You all suck," Nora grumbled.

"Wait, wait, time out." Russel made a T with both hands. "Who'd you ask? It's not Cardin, right?"

Weiss stared at him. "Why does _everyone_ think my taste is that bad?!"

"So, Blake." Yang made it a statement rather than a question.

Weiss twitched, her face turning scarlet. "Nora's right, you _do_ all suck."

Nora held her hand up for a high five. Weiss steadfastly ignored it, so Yang took her up on it instead. Dove sighed and shook his head, letting his hair hide his amused smirk. His partner saw it anyway.

* * *

"Which do you think is better?" Sky asked, gesturing between two carts. One was selling something that originated from Vacuo, which meant that it was probably delicious and also hot enough to burn the roof off Ruby's mouth. The other...

"You're messing with us, right?" Ren pointed to the Atlesian cart. It seemed to sell only fish, which was a little weird, but the really _awful_ thing was the two rows of tiny plastic plates. There was something on them. Ruby couldn't quite decide if it was fish or jelly, and that fact alone was enough to make her nauseous.

Pyrrha hummed noncommittally. All three of them stared at her.

"Okay." Sky held up a finger. "That was a test. And you are _definitely_ not paying attention right now."

Ruby wasn't sure he had much room to talk—just an hour ago he'd suddenly turned around to stare off into the crowd, and he'd been distracted for a while afterwards. He also wouldn't tell them what he saw, which was worrying, though maybe not _as_ worrying as her partner being zoned out enough to agree to eat... _that._

Pyrrha snapped back to attention. "Oh! I'm sorry, I was lost in thought." Then she looked at the... _fish-jelly,_ and did a double-take. "What _is_ that?"

"Lutefisk," the vendor supplied, looking highly amused. "Fish soaked in lye."

"Uh..." Ruby looked around. "Well, that's..."

"I won't be offended if you'd prefer salmon," he said, chuckling and offering them a plate of _much_ better-looking fish.

While they ate, they colonized a small picnic bench near a young girl playing the violin. Ruby dug into her meal with gusto—she felt like just _seeing_ the Lutefisk had made her appreciate other food more. They were silent for a little while, all of them occupied with chewing, until Ren said, "I think I know what your semblance is."

Sky inhaled salmon, choked, then nearly fell off the bench when Ren clapped him on the back. "You—huh?" he gasped, when he could breathe again. "What?"

"You noticed which member of Pastel was the most dangerous," he said, frowning thoughtfully, as though he was still working it through in his head. "And do you remember when you saw Shoulder?"

Sky shivered. "Yeah, never going to forget that."

"Then in the fight against the White Fang officer, you knew that Winter needed to duck when he used his semblance."

"I guess?" Sky frowned. "Wait, so you're saying..."

"I think it's some sort of danger sense. Which would explain why you didn't realize what it was until now—if I'm right, it seems to be quite subtle."

Sky frowned. "So... my semblance is literally fear. Great."

Ruby flicked a napkin at him. "Hey, stop it! Being able to tell when someone can murder us is _way_ more useful than, like..." she groped for an example, "...freezing in place like Cardin does."

He shrugged. "I guess so. Though... I'm not sure. I'm trying to activate it and nothing's happening."

Ruby giggled despite herself. "That's what I kept saying right after I used mine the first time... and right before I hit my first tree."

All three of them laughed at that—even Ren—and she grinned back. It _was_ pretty funny.

After their meal they made their way back to the arena, with Ruby trotting along next to Pyrrha and snatching concerned glances in her direction. She looked a little less spaced-out now, which was good.

"You sure you're okay?" she asked, lagging behind a little to give them some privacy. A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Oh! Is it because of the tournament? I mean, I know you don't like when people are all... you know, and it's similar to what you were doing before, so—" she let her mouth snap shut, because if she didn't physically stop herself she would probably keep going for a while. Pyrrha smiled sadly.

"It's not that," she said, "but thank you."

"No problem!" Ruby fiddled with Crescent Rose, checking some of the joints even though she'd already oiled them all that morning.

"I promise it won't interfere with the tournament."

"Pfft." Ruby waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. Really! It'd be cool to win and everything, but it's just a game."

At that, Pyrrha let out a startled laugh. "I suppose I'm not used to thinking of them that way."

Ruby shrugged. "I'd probably be more worried about losing if we hadn't just all almost died like a week ago." _Something, something, perspective._

"To all those who are just tuning in!" Port's voice boomed over the microphone. Ruby and Pyrrha both broke off their conversation and looked up. "Our next two teams will each be sending two members into the ring to compete. In this first match we have Flynt Coal and Neon Katt, second-years of Atlas—"

"And Ruby Rose and Pyrrha Nikos, first-years of Beacon," Oobleck added. The crowd began to roar, and Ruby tugged anxiously at her cloak as they made their way down into the ring. Something about the cheering always made her feel tiny and clumsy.

One of their opponents, a girl Ruby vaguely recognized from the first day Atlas had arrived, let out an audible groan. "Oh, _seriously?_ First those jackasses and now we have to fight _her?!"_ She gestured at Pyrrha. Her teammate, a tall guy wearing something even _she_ could tell was fashionable, was grimacing—she could see it on the screens. Pyrrha looked away, running a hand over her shield.

"Hey!" Ruby crossed her arms and tried to look as ferocious as she could. "You don't need to be rude." The girl cracked up.

"Aw, look at her! That's so _cute!"_

"I'm not cute!" Ruby protested. When she turned to Pyrrha for support, she saw her partner sporting a guilty expression. "I'm not!"

There was a low rumble as the terrain clicked into place. Ruby glanced around, noted the field of ice on their opponents' side of the ring. She winced, suddenly remembering her first winter with her semblance and the many, _many_ accidents. Their side was more hospitable—well, sort of. It was full of geysers that kept erupting in plumes of steam, but there was better traction.

The girl— _Neon, right?—_ was tapping her cheek thoughtfully. Ruby noticed there was a little birthmark there shaped like a heart. "I didn't think they came this young," she said, her mouth pulling into a little pout. "I mean, _wow._ What are you, twelve?"

"What are _you?_ Um..." Ruby searched for an appropriate insult and came up blank. She could actually _feel_ the blood rushing to her face.

Neon squealed as if she'd just watched a puppy yawn. Ruby stamped her foot and unfolded Crescent Rose. Maybe that stopped the taunting, or maybe it was just that Oobleck and Port ordered the match to start.

"Hey, kiddo!" Neon winked at her. "Want to see how us grown-ups fight?"

Ruby ignored that. If there was one thing she'd learned growing up with Yang, it was that there was a limit to how useful being angry could be in combat. Besides, she was pretty sure that Neon was trying to split her and Pyrrha up, and it seemed silly to let her. Sure, there were people who worked together better than they did—Ren and Nora blew pretty much everyone else out of the water on that front—but she liked to think they were coming close to well-oiled-machine territory.

She rushed forward, bursting apart as she went. Before she could move more than a few feet, the boy, Flint, lifted his trumpet to his lips—and there was _sound._ It was the first time she'd ever been knocked around _while scattered,_ and the experience wasn't pleasant. There was a moment of panic when she wasn't sure where all her pieces were, then a nasty tingling as she reformed on the back foot, shaking her head to try and clear it.

 _Okay,_ she thought. _I want to get rid of him first._

"Pepper!" She rushed them again, this time without using her semblance. He played another series of notes, and she had to dig in her heels against the headwind. Neon was coming in on their other side, whirling a glow stick in either hand. She aimed at Flynt's chest and paused, waiting for Pyrrha to shoot at his feet and trip him up. There was a slight lull. He moved his trumpet to cover himself and Neon got close enough to interfere. Then the bullet came, nearly a full second after she'd been expecting it, and he danced out of the way.

"Uh..." Ruby looked to her left. Pyrrha was shaking her head, frowning. Still distracted, then. That was fine—it _was_ still just a game, even if Neon had made her want to win _way_ more than she had a minute ago. Kind of worrying, though, because her partner was usually more way invested in combat than this.

Before she could think about it in detail, Neon was on her. She backed up as she got used to the weird back and forth pattern of the older girl's attacks, then ducked sideways and slashed across her back. The trumpet sounded, knocking her into her opponent, and one of the glow sticks clipped her side. Her aura dipped, but not by much. She'd probably come out ahead there.

When she glanced to her left, she noticed that Pyrrha was now dueling with Flint. She frowned a little, then whistled and called out, "Watermelon!" This time her partner responded immediately. She pressed Flint backwards with a flurry of blows. Ruby waited for a moment, doing her best to time her fight with Neon so that she would be free right around when Flint came into range. Then she whirled around and scattered, reforming behind him as Pyrrha crouched down and kicked at his feet. She landed three hits across his back before he could react, which pushed him from mid-green down into the yellow.

Ruby didn't really have time to celebrate, since Neon had rollerbladed over to her— _she rollerblades everywhere and_ I'm _the twelve-year-old?_ They were just at the border of the geyser field now, so she decided to take advantage of them. Sort of. Her _idea_ had been to push the other girl into the path of the steam, which was maybe a bit mean but wouldn't put her into the red, much less actually hurt her. What _actually_ happened was that the ground under them got really bumpy, which made it harder for her to keep her balance.

Neon tried to back up, so Ruby burst apart and reformed between her and the rest of the arena. Then she fired a few shots towards her feet. She stumbled, and the blade of Crescent Rose curled all the way around her stomach. Grinning with satisfaction, Ruby pressed the trigger. Her aura plummeted into the yellow, and she went rolling and skidding back towards Flint, landing sprawled behind him.

Pyrrha seemed to be doing okay. Usually that wasn't something Ruby needed to worry about— _especially_ when they were fighting people. She still seemed off, though. Even as she watched, her partner reacted too slowly to a burst of sound and was pushed out onto the ice. Her feet slid, and in the second it took her to catch herself he stepped forward and _split._ Three identical copies of him walked out to either side, each with his own trumpet and wearing a different colored fedora.

Ruby scattered again, but Neon got in her way before she could disrupt his attack. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the trumpet blast send Pyrrha skidding and sliding on the ice. She must have snapped out of it, because she flipped her sword in her hand and slammed it into the ground to brace herself. Her other arm shot out and her shield arced around the attack and knocked one of the duplicates off his feet. The three of them collapsed back into the real Flint, and he staggered.

Neon was still in her way. That was easily fixed—she feinted to one side, then the other, then scattered and slipped under her outstretched arm until she was behind Flint. She reformed before he could blast her again, but she was still almost thrown off her feet. Her aura ticked down some more. She dug the blade of her scythe into the arena, and that stopped her from being pushed around. It also meant that Pyrrha was free, and once she closed the distance she landed several hits against his shoulder and back. His aura was now only a little above the red. Ruby lined up her rifle and shot him. The buzzer sounded.

That cost her. Neon took the opportunity to kick her hard in the stomach, and she ended up lying on her side and struggling to get her feet under her while her opponent tried to hit her with a glow stick. Her attacks were frenzied, desperate. She probably assumed she was going to lose, now. Ruby felt a flash of anger—what, she was okay losing to Pyrrha as long as she took out the little kid first?!

She rolled to one side and sprang back up, using the momentum to shoulder-check Neon. When she staggered, she had to turn on her heel to block a thrust from Pyrrha's javelin. Her shield came up, slapping one of the glow sticks away from her. Neon's arm went wide, and Ruby slipped the blade of Crescent Rose into the soft spot under it and scored away another chunk of her aura. Then Pyrrha fired a few shots, knocked her off balance, and finished the fight with another jab with Miló.

For a few seconds they stood there, breathing heavily. Ruby became aware of the crowd again, and shrank into her hood. Neon was staring at her, too, but she didn't look _mad._ More like excited.

"Oh my _gosh!"_ she squealed, popping back to her feet with her tail lashing behind her. "You totally beat me!"

Ruby's eye twitched a little—somehow, Neon seemed less annoying when she was deliberately trying to make them angry so that they made mistakes. "Um... I guess?"

"And, yeah, it's a _little_ frustrating that the random matches had to stick us with Pyrrha Nikos, it's like a _guaranteed_ loss, but _wow!"_ She clapped her hands together. "It was so cool actually fighting you!"

"Thanks!" Ruby said, noticing Pyrrha's expression and grabbing her by the wrist. "It was really nice meeting you and everything but we gotta go so bye!"

"I appreciate that," Pyrrha told her, after they very bravely ran away from the attention of the crowd and their opponents.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ruby fiddled with the hem of her cloak. "It's just that you seemed distracted, and I feel like when something's bothering you a fight helps you forget about it. Or maybe that's just me?"

"Usually, yes. I've just... I need to make a decision about something."

"Oh." Ruby tried to think of what that might mean. "Not, like, deciding to go to Haven or something, right?"

"No!" Pyrrha said quickly. "No, of course not."

"Okay, then I can definitely support you, whatever you decide!" Ruby hesitated. "Not that I wouldn't support you if it _was_ about Haven! It's just that I wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't make you stay if you didn't want to! Um."

"There's no need to force me stay," Pyrrha assured her. "And... thank you. That was... more helpful than you might think."

"Wow, really? Because it was mostly just me rambling."

Pyrrha smiled—not her usual friendly or polite smile either, but a _mischievous_ one. "I like the rambling," she said. "It's cute."

"I'm not cute!" Ruby insisted, indignant. Pyrrha, traitor that she was, just laughed at her.

* * *

Weiss muttered a curse when the bean bag she'd been trying to catch slipped between her fingers and landed on the ground with a thump and a rattling of its insides. She scooped it up and tossed it into the air again. This time she caught it between her index and middle fingers.

"Do you have to do that when we're in the stands?" Cardin grumbled.

She glared at him. Proper intimidation and depth perception seemed to be the two things most affected by the 'eye incident.' There were things people had been telling her to do to get around the problem of depth perception—one of them was moving her head. Another was practice, hence the bean bag. As for intimidation...

She lifted up the patch and opened her bad eye. Cardin looked hurriedly in the other direction. She smirked and covered it up again. Maybe her glare was less effective when the bad eye was covered, but something about the blown-out pupil seemed to terrify people who weren't expecting it. She'd found that out mostly by accident, when Russel had said, 'Arr' when passing her one too many times.

Another toss of the bean bag. This time she managed to slap it with one hand, and it ended up in Jaune's lap. He moved to hand it to her, then paused when she raised an eyebrow. After a moment's hesitation, he lobbed it underhand towards her head. She snatched it out of the air, feeling a flush of pride at the meaty _smack_ it made when it struck her palm.

Depth perception wasn't the main problem. Or, well, it probably _would_ be once she was reflecting on all this in six years or so, but at the moment the main problem was Blake. She'd said _maybe_ half as much in the past five days as Jaune had in the past ten minutes, and she kept getting this _look_ on her face, like she'd personally cut the stupid eye out. All this despite the fact that Weiss had very specifically told her that none of it was her fault. It was irritating.

Down below, the match was ending. Weiss clapped, despite being phenomenally unsurprised. Ruby had come a long way from accidentally blowing people up in the courtyard, and... well, Pyrrha. The result was a foregone conclusion. There was a pause, as the names of the next combatants were drawn.

"Well, look at this!" Port declared, with obviously forced enthusiasm. "Our first third-year team in a while—Leonardo Edelfell and Marten Strobus, of Beacon."

Weiss grimaced. "Does anyone want to go... anywhere else? I'd rather not watch this."

"Well, I guess?" Jaune said, hesitating. "But would you really want to miss it if someone kicked their—"

"Oh- _ho!"_ Port chuckled over the microphone. "What have we here? Quite an upset!"

"Indeed," Oobleck agreed. "It seems as though we have another pair of Beacon students!"

 _"Yang and Nora,"_ Jaune muttered under his breath, crossing his fingers. "I mean, if anyone deserves that—"

"First-years Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna!"

"Oh." Jaune turned towards them. "That works too. Make it hurt!"

Weiss stood up and replaced the eye patch, feeling a touch nervous despite herself. They might be idiots, but two years wasn't the sort of gap you could laugh off. Before she and Blake could make their way down to the arena, Cardin snagged her sleeve.

"Careful," he said. "Leo's their worst fighter, but Marten's good. And if anyone would have an 'accident' during the tournament, it's him."

"Wonderful," Weiss drawled. She'd been hoping that Winter could be present during their double's match, but she supposed she'd have to make do with knowing she'd be watching the video later.

She and Blake made their way to the central arena, lifting their heads against the smirks of the two older boys. Normally when Weiss saw them around the school, they were in their uniforms—she hadn't been prepared. Leonardo had a similar fashion sense to Sun, which would probably infuriate both of them, and was wearing a massive, shaggy fur coat that was open to expose his bare chest. That seemed utterly ridiculous, especially since she was fairly sure he came from _Atlas_ and not Vacuo. There was a shield on his left arm, rounded and with a metal bolt in its center. His right hand gripped a straight sword.

His teammate, Marten, was dressed in a pair of formal-looking black slacks and a red and brown checkered button-up, which struck her as odd mostly because of how _normal_ it was. He wouldn't look out of place in the crowds of civilians that frequented the festival. The only sign of something... _off,_ for lack of a better word, was the fact that aside from a sensible crossbow he also carried a knife on his belt that ended in a wicked-looking hook.

The screens flashed through the roulette of possible environments, and Leonardo cracked his knuckles. If that was supposed to be ominous, she honestly couldn't tell—it paled in comparison to the massive White Fang Lieutenant who liked to drag a chainsaw against rock to intimidate people. Then he shifted his weight, tossed his head, and called out, "Hey! Nice eye!"

"Nice talent," she shot back.

He stared at her, then snorted. "What?"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" She tapped the patch. "I thought we were naming what's missing." Blake shot her a look—part amusement, part silent plea to stop provoking people who already had reason to hurt her. She rolled her eye.

There wasn't time for much else before the match started. Weiss briefly noticed the forest on the enemy's side, along with a rugged mountain on theirs. Weaving between trees and climbing—two things that were much harder without binocular depth cues. _Wonderful._

The moment Oobleck and Port ordered them to begin, Leonardo and Marten split off, the former charging straight for Blake and the latter curving around to Weiss' right side. He wanted to keep in her blind spot. A volley of crossbow bolts whistled towards her, only to shatter on a glyph. Most of them snapped or simply fell to the ground, but two let out ominous hissing noises as their tips glowed red, then yellow. Not detonating—simply burning whatever they touched. _How much effort must he have spent applying just the right amount of Dust for that effect?_

Blake tapped her twice on her left shoulder, then flicked an ear towards the forest area. The two of them began to advance, little by little. Marten was still circling, always towards her right side, occasionally shooting at her and then pausing as if measuring her response. He seemed suspiciously timid.

Or, as it turned out, not. Leonardo was slashing at Blake like a woodsman hacking away at a tree, and having very little success thus far. With that said, even attacks from him that she blocked were nicking away at her aura, and he was speeding up as he went. Marten quit prodding at her with the crossbow and closed in, now aiming bolts that sent off purple sparks as they flew. When she deflected one with her sword, it sank point-first into the earth, pulling her whole arm down under its increased weight. While she was stuck, another bolt struck her shoulder. An arc of electricity passed between the tip and her skin, even as it slid off her aura, and her left arm went momentarily numb.

Marten drew the hooked knife with his right hand, closing the distance and slashing at her throat. Weiss ducked, then kicked him hard in the stomach. He didn't even budge, and she was forced to abandon her rapier to avoid getting cut. She circled around him, keeping a wary distance between them, then dashed past him to recollect Myrtenaster. The effect of the gravity Dust had worn off by then, and she snatched it easily out of the ground.

If it were anyone else, that was around when she would have resigned herself to a probable loss. They were two years short on experience, she was still adjusting to the new eye, and in the end it was only a tournament. But _these_ people? After the way they had treated students like Velvet? And with the way Marten was _smirking?_ It wasn't the kind of glee someone like Yang or Nora got out of a fight, the rush of adrenaline and the competitiveness of the affair. It reminded her more of the likes of Perry, waiting eagerly for Adam to kill her. He wasn't enjoying _winning,_ he was enjoying watching her _lose._

She and Blake hit the treeline, with more crossbow bolts clattering against the trunks around them as they went. In moments, her partner had disappeared entirely. Weiss spun around, refusing on principle to let herself panic. This was probably a strategy, the sort that they hadn't had the time or inclination to plan out in advance. She whirled around, sword extended, backing away as the older students advanced.

With a twist of her fingers a haste glyph appeared under her feet. The world around her slowed to a crawl, and she lit up the air around the two with platforms. _Breathe,_ she thought. _In and out._ She sprang forward, nearly missing the first glyph. With the tips of her toes she touched its surface, then propelled herself sideways, scoring a line across Leonardo's back as she did so. As she went she got better at landing dead center, leaping from one to another without pause. It was hard to tell by sight where they were, but she thought she had a vague sense of their distance from her—or maybe it was just that she was getting better at guessing depth with only the one eye.

In one moment, she was bouncing between two glyphs and cutting across Marten's side. In the next, she was sprawled on her side feeling like someone had just sucker-punched her in the gut. The hooked knife was on the ground a foot or two away from her—he must have thrown it. When she tried to put her boot down on it, he flicked his wrist and it went flying into his waiting palm.

Just then, Blake made her reappearance. She dropped from the treetops directly behind Leonardo, landing soundlessly and then springing away, leaving a bright flash of yellow behind. He didn't have time to look around before he was blasted off his feet by an arc of lightning. Groaning, he rolled back to his feet. To her dismay, he still had almost two thirds of his aura left. Marten was hardly even scratched.

Still, she thought she'd grasped the basic strategy. _Keep their attention._ She leveled her rapier towards Leonardo and loosed a fireball in his direction. He rolled out of the way, coming up on his hands and knees, then glanced over his shoulder. Blake darted out from behind a tree, leapt over him, and let another clone—this one made of stone—materialize just above his head. He went down, groaning, with rubble in his hair. Not in the red, not yet, but closer.

When Blake darted out a third time, Leonardo had anticipated it. He managed to wrap his shield arm around her shoulders and slashed at her with his sword. Weiss put a glyph under one of his feet and pushed it out from under him. He and Blake went down in a heap, with him underneath her. She sprang back to her feet, her aura now a little over half. His was closer to a third.

The second's distraction cost her. One of Marten's crossbow bolts hit her in the side, and she felt to one knee as an unbearable leaden feeling spread around the place where it had struck. His expression stayed mostly neutral, but she could see his eyes lighting up. He cocked his head and made a quick come-hither gesture with two fingers. Weiss ducked, and two fallen bolts came whizzing over her head. He stepped out of their way, letting them embed themselves in the trunk of a tree behind him. It toppled under its own weight, leaning towards where Leonardo and Blake were, smoke beginning to billow from one of the bolts.

Blake rolled out of the way in the nick of time, leaving behind a fiery outline that detonated in spectacular fashion. Leonardo swore and brought a hand up over his face. A branch clipped his temple on the way down and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. The buzzer sounded.

Flushed with success, Weiss hauled herself back to her feet. The odd, off-balance feeling caused by the gravity Dust was fading, now. Marten raised the crossbow again, this time aiming unmistakably at her chest. She threw up several glyphs—she had absolutely no interest in finding out what it felt like to have your _lungs_ triple in weight. She'd live, at least with her aura as high as it was— _only two-thirds?! Damn it—_ but she'd probably be unable to breathe for a few seconds until the effect wore off.

Marten was still almost full on aura, and didn't seem the least bit perturbed by the fact that he was now fighting two-against-one. He drew the knife from his belt, twirled it through his fingers, then tossed it at Blake. She ducked out of the way.

"Behind you!" Weiss warned. Sure enough, the blade came soaring back the way it bad come. Blake dodged again, and the handle landed securely in Marten's palm.

Another crossbow bolt, this one aimed at Blake. Weiss explained what they did in as few words as she could, so that her partner wouldn't make the same mistake of trying to parry one with her weapon.

They were coming up on the edge of the arena, now. The trees grew sparser, which made it harder for Blake to try the same trick of dropping out of the canopy. She was probably running out of Dust by now, anyway—what was left? Ice, and Weiss was fairly sure that was it. _Great._

Marten crooked his index finger at her, and her rapier jumped in her hand. She tightened her grip, narrowing her eye at him. He grinned, flicked his crossbow over his shoulder, and then fired several times behind himself. She had about half a second to wonder why on _Remnant_ he would bother before he flicked his wrist and all four bolts reversed direction and accelerated _much_ faster than normal. She put up a glyph and tried to dodge sideways. The first two bolts clattered harmlessly against her barrier, the third shattered it and embedded itself in the ground a few inches from her foot, and the last bounced off her hip with a sharp _snap_ of electricity. Before she'd recovered from that, another shot struck her wrist and her hand was dragged down to the ground and stuck fast.

Another barrier protected her from yet _more_ arrows, and by then Blake was too close for him to keep shooting at her. She tugged Myrtenaster out from under her left hand and into her right, then flicked the chamber and sent jagged spikes of ice towards Marten. He slipped, took a hit from Blake to the chin, then steadied himself and threw the dagger again. Weiss had nowhere to move, but she threw up a glyph in time to intercept. When he recalled it, the hooked tip clipped Blake's arm.

Weiss dragged herself back upright with a snarl, letting the last of the extra weight bleed out of her hand. Her wrist was aching from the strange angle it had been forced to bend at, though her aura was clearing that up even as she moved forward. Marten was circling around, now, putting his back to the arena's edge. Grinning, he made another gesture with one hand.

Expecting a similar tug, she tightened her grip on her sword—but when his semblance took effect, the blade was ripped straight out of her hand and went sailing over his shoulder and out of the ring. She stared at it for a moment, lying next to the barrier that protected the stands. If that hadn't been there, it probably would have hit a spectator blade-first. A few of the crowd in that area had stood up, probably from the shock of seeing something flying at them like that.

He then proceeded to ignore her _entirely._ Blood already starting to boil, Weiss waited until he was completely absorbed by a duel with Blake—one that he didn't lose despite the fact that he only had one weapon to her two and hardly any reach—and snatched one of the purple-tipped arrows off the ground. Careful not to let the Dust touch her, she held it behind her back and started forwards. Haste glyphs were out of the question, now—she didn't have any more Dust. Unless...

She grabbed another arrow, this one yellow, and pointed it towards the fight in progress. A yellow glyph—small and shaky due to the sub-par materials—formed under her partner's feet. The moment it took effect, Marten had to retreat, using his crossbow to block some blows and his knife to deflect the others. He threw out his free hand, once, to try and pull on Blake's sword, but she managed to keep hold of it.

He was at the edge of the arena by the time the glyph wore off. Blake rushed forward and shoved him with both hands, then backed away. He didn't fall, but there was a figure of ice where she had been a second before, and he couldn't recover his balance right away. Weiss skimmed across a line of glyphs, lined up her shot, and lobbed the purple-tipped bolt at him. It didn't hit where she'd been aiming, which was his head, but it did clip the collar of his shirt. The extra weight dragged him backwards, and the ice-sculpture—attached to him by both of its hands—toppled onto him as he fell. It shattered when he hit the ground. The buzzer went off.

It was only then that Weiss started to process the noise the crowd was making, and it was... worrying. There were cheers, certainly—you didn't get a bigger upset than a pair of first-years defeating third-years, and everyone loves an underdog. But there was an undertone to them, a low buzzing, as some of the crowd got up and booed and jeered at them. She straightened her back and stared directly into the camera, allowing herself a smug smirk.

Jaune and Cardin met them as they left the arena proper, stopping them in one of the aisles between the seats. Their leader was bouncing up and down and letting out little squeaks of excitement, and even his partner seemed impressed.

"The look on Leonardo's face," he whispered reverently.

"I'm glad it was entertaining," Weiss said, only mostly sarcastically.

 _"Entertaining?"_ A third voice sounded from somewhere behind Cardin. _Wait._

"Sun?" She stared at him in disbelief. His ability to pop up out of nowhere really was astounding.

"You avenged us!" he cheered. Then he gave something behind him a tug, and a tall blue-haired boy stumbled into view.

"Yeah!" The new boy grinned, showing off a set of gleaming white teeth. "Thanks for defending our honor and everything."

Jaune was looking from Sun, to Blake and Weiss, back to Sun again. "Hang on," he said, pointing. "You're the guy!"

"Huh?"

"The guy on the scroll!" He gesticulated frantically at Sun, who was looking a little sheepish now. "I've been wondering who the heck that was for ages!" Then he frowned. "Wait, who _are_ you?"

"We met in Vale," Sun explained, nodding at Weiss. "I was the mediator that made _this_ partnership happen!"

Blake made a face. "That's taking it a little far."

"Nora already claimed that title," Weiss added.

"Who is this Nora?" Sun asked. Weiss felt her eyes go huge, and had the feeling Blake was wearing the exact same horrified expression.

"No one!" she said hurriedly.

He snickered. "You _sure?"_ Then he pointed at the blue-haired guy. "This is Neptune. See? You met my teammate, I want to meet yours!"

"She's not technically our teammate," Jaune said. He was starting to look a little nervous too.

"Let me put it this way." Weiss crossed her arms. "You're not meeting Brine at the festival. You're meeting Brine somewhere far away from anything explosive or flammable, at some point in time where _I_ don't have to deal with the fallout."

Sun's eyes lit up. "Holy _crap,_ they sound aweso—"

_"You."_

Weiss looked around so quickly that her neck gave a warning twinge. _Winter_ was in the stands, about twenty feet above them. A wide grin spread across her face—an impulse both her sister and her father had tried unsuccessfully to squash—and she stood up on her tiptoes to wave.

"Winter! You were watching that?!" It had been a _good_ match, too! Obviously she had a strike missed here or there, or... well, all over the place, but she and Blake had gone up against third-years and _won!_ Her face was already flushed with pride, and she didn't even bother trying to hide it.

Then, she noticed Winter's posture. She had her sword partly drawn, showing a few inches of naked steel. It had been recently reforged, and so it glittered a blinding sort of white that the original, polished though it had been, couldn't match. She was staring at their group, her lips pulled back, her jaw clenched. _What...?_

"Uh..." Jaune looked around. "Us?"

Sun's tail lashed in the air, curling behind him as though to hide. "Hi!" he tried, holding out a hand. "I'm Sun! And I'm guessing you're _probably_ related to Ice Queen over here—"

Winter lashed out at him. She'd started almost twenty feet away, but in hardly more than an instant she was in front of him, aiming a slash at his throat. He yelped, ducked, and then dove for cover behind one of the seats.

"Whoa!" Jaune shouted, leaping forward and bringing up his shield.

Neptune tried to grab Winter's arm. "Hey, not cool—ow!" He stumbled back, grabbing at the bridge of his nose. The crowd was reacting now, contracting to empty the seats closest to the fighting and spilling out into the aisles. People were gawking over the shoulders of the people in front of them as Sun leaped from chair to chair to escape Winter's sword.

Weiss jolted back to the present when Blake gripped her upper arm, _hard._ "Winter!" She rushed forward, trying to put herself between the two. "What are you _doing?!"_

"He was there," she snapped, leveling the blade at him again. He jumped behind Weiss, his tail bristling with shock and fear.

"I was where now?!" He held up both hands. "Hey, come on, I don't even have my—"

A massive glyph spun to life, and before Weiss could react a Beowolf lurched out from inside it and leapt for him. Blake got in its way, cutting its throat and letting it dissipate into flakes of white.

 _"Stop it!"_ Weiss shouted. She spread both hands, forming a hexagon of glyphs around herself and Sun. Winter stopped, her eyes still trained on him.

"He—" she started to say.

"He didn't do _anything!"_ Neptune hopped up on a seat, going red in the face. "What the hell is wrong with you people, _seriously!"_

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation," Weiss said. She looked over at Winter. "What do you mean, he was there?"

She kept her sword held out, poised to strike. "He was _there._ At Woodacre."

Weiss glanced over at Sun—the spiky hair, the open shirt, the wide, fearful eyes. "Of course he wasn't," she said, brow furrowing. "He helped us fight them in the beginning of the year."

"Weiss, get out of the—"

"Stand down!" bellowed another, unfamiliar voice. Professor Goodwitch was approaching, alongside a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair that Weiss recognized immediately as General Ironwood. It was he who had shouted.

This time, Winter sheathed the sword. "Sir—"

"No." He pointed behind him, towards the exit of the arena. "Go. _Now."_

Winter didn't move for a long moment. Then she glanced over at the group of them, particularly at Blake and Jaune, and relaxed a little. "Yes, sir."

He turned on his heel, stalking away with Winter following meekly behind him. Goodwitch stared after them for a moment, then turned back around. "I apologize for that, Mr. Wukong," she said, bending forward at the waist in what was unmistakably a _bow._ That was, Weiss was fairly sure, the most deference she'd _ever_ shown a student. "We will be investigating all of this. _Thoroughly."_

"But—" Weiss stopped, letting the glyphs around her dissipate. "It's... she had to have had a _reason—"_

"Yeah," Neptune fired back. "That's the reason." He pointed at Sun's tail.

"That's my _sister_ you're talking about—"

"Whoa!" Sun spread his hands out. "Hey. It's cool. I'm fine, really! It was probably just, uh, a misunderstanding or something."

"Misunderstanding?" Blake grabbed his shoulder, looking livid. "She just attacked you for no—"

Goodwitch cleared her throat. They all shut up and looked at her. "None of you will be competing again until the singles. I suggest you find somewhere less _public_ to hash this out."

Weiss followed her team into the bright sunshine of the skies of Vale, still thinking furiously. Winter wouldn't just attack someone at random _._ She was always cool, calm, controlled. Well, _usually._ They'd both inherited their father's hot temper and weren't as adept at hiding it as he was, but she certainly didn't try to _cut_ people without good reason. But, then again... _Sun_ with the White Fang? No. Just no. She wouldn't even have been able to picture that when she first met him, and she wasn't exactly the _best_ judge of that sort of thing at the time.

But... Winter wouldn't just assume he'd been at Woodacre just because he was a faunus. There _had_ to be something that would explain it.

She just... hadn't figured out what it was yet.


	43. Covalent Bonds [4]

Sky saw him out of the corner of his eye, walking in the middle of a group of tourists. It was just a flash, really, a snapshot of silvery-hair growing up in spikes, sharp dark eyes, the cocky grin of someone who thinks he's invincible.

He shook his head and looked away. It wasn't real. Maybe he was being haunted or something, but very probably it was just a stress response. Guilt. Something like that. Regardless, it definitely _wasn't_ him—Goodwitch had told him that they'd verified he hadn't survived. Over the past few days, he'd gotten better at ignoring him whenever he popped up. It wasn't all the time, usually only once or twice a day, always slipped in somewhere amongst the crowds and vanishing the second he gave him a proper look. He hadn't been sleeping very well.

 _It was self-defense,_ he told himself. _Better him than Ren._ Eventually it would get through his stupid skull.

"You okay?" Ruby asked, poking his arm. He looked around, started to nod, then thought better of it.

"No comment," he said, grinning sheepishly.

Ren rested a hand on his shoulder. This was one of those times when Sky couldn't tell if he was using his semblance or not—the gesture was calming, but not so much that it was impossible for it to be natural. Either way, it was nice.

"We should go do something," Ruby decided. "Cheer ourselves up." She'd stopped trying to wheedle an explanation out of him and Pyrrha a while ago, for which both of them were grateful. Well, sort of. Sky couldn't help wishing she'd kept needling Pyrrha—it wasn't hard to guess what was bothering him, but he had no _idea_ when or why she'd started acting so... distant? Preoccupied? He was leaning towards troubled.

Ruby led the way towards the stalls. They were spread out around Beacon's campus, with some of them in the shadow of the floating coliseum. She pointed enthusiastically at one game—there were little cardboard cutouts of Grimm, and you could pay to throw knives, axes, or shuriken at them. Sky managed to hit one of the Beowolves' tails with a knife, a feat that would have been more exciting if he hadn't seen a flash of silver vanishing in the crowd a moment later. Pyrrha hit each Grimm right in the eye with every type of weapon, and when asked which prize she wanted she just shook her head distractedly and asked Ruby to choose.

"I'm afraid I'm not very good company at the moment," she said, as they moved on to another stall.

Ruby walked backwards for a few paces so that she could give them a serious look. "Don't worry about that, okay?" She gestured at the fairgrounds around them. "Just let me and Ren handle the cheering-up thing! All you guys have to do is relax."

Sky did his best to follow her advice, and found that it was... nice. He followed blindly after Ren, taking part in whatever activity he and Ruby pointed them at. He wasn't always all there—he didn't see the silver-haired boy again, but it was hard not to think about him. Having fun felt taboo, like he shouldn't be able to smile so soon after killing another person. But when he couldn't get his smiles to feel genuine, he just let them drop. He spaced out, fumbled easy throws in a beanbag tossing game, and almost hit Ren with a basketball. And that was fine—Pyrrha was doing the same thing. _Just relax. No need to pretend._

It got easier as they went. He was distracted, and began playing the silly fairground games with a zealous intensity to try and stay that way. At one point he actually outscored Pyrrha throwing darts, though this was mostly because she'd tossed six of them without looking up to aim. And even then, it was only by two points.

True to their word, Ruby and Ren handled everything. They guided their teammates towards food stands, let them ignore the games when they wanted but always interrupted when they started to brood for too long.

"Where'd you guys learn to do this?" he wondered, staring down at a cone of cotton candy that had just sort of... _appeared_ in his hand as if by magic.

"Yang."

"Nora."

They spoke at exactly the same time, then looked at each other and grinned. Sky started laughing so hard that he inhaled some of the cotton candy. Pyrrha smiled, too, though she still seemed lost in thought.

"Would..." she started, then trailed off.

Ruby cocked her head and said, "Huh?"

Pyrrha glanced off into the distance. "I was just thinking... perhaps we could go walking somewhere? It's a little crowded."

"That sounds good," Sky said quickly. He hadn't seen the boy in a while, and he never appeared unless there were lots of people around. A rambling walk through Beacon's gardens would be perfect. Ren seemed relieved, too—he usually preferred nature and small groups of friends to big crowds. Ruby was a tad disappointed, but she agreed to the idea readily enough.

They soon wound their way into a sea of hedges trimmed into the shapes of Grimm—oddly morbid for a garden—and wild-looking rosebushes and rhododendrons. Very little was still blooming, but there was still plenty of color in the form of changing leaves, and the earth had that damp, rich smell that he always associated with rain.

Pyrrha stopped to slip a hand under a shock of fiery-gold leaves and lift them to her face. She stared at them, turning them this way and that. "There's something I should do," she murmured. "And the more time I spend like this, the less I want to."

Ruby, Sky, and Ren all shared a startled look. Two vague sentences—and still more than they'd gotten out of her in _days._ None of them seemed to know how to respond to that, though. It wasn't exactly a question, and she sounded as if she was mostly talking to herself.

Before any of them could decide on what to do next, they were cut short by a shout from somewhere nearby. Sky couldn't make out the words. It went completely without saying that Ruby was moving towards the noise almost before the rest of them had registered it. They crept closer, and almost immediately the muffled voices resolved themselves into a heated argument.

"—don't understand what the _hell_ you thought you were doing!" a man's voice snapped.

"He was _there!"_ Sky froze—he knew her. Winter. And that meant the man was probably General Ironwood. He swallowed hard. _What...?_

"Did anyone _else_ see him?" Ironwood gritted out. "Because _all four_ of the students attacked that night have _sworn_ that he wasn't there and isn't in the White Fang."

"That can't—their leader, Jaune, he _must_ have seen—"

"He didn't."

"Sir, I know what I saw."

There was a heavy sigh. "Winter. That was... you were under enormous stress, it's only natural that you weren't at a hundred percent—"

"I am not _seeing things!_ He was there, he was _smirking at me."_

"There's a motel in Vale that has a Sun Wukong in their registry. According to the staff, he checked in at nine and didn't leave until the next morning."

"They could be lying—"

"Why? There's no motive, and there's certainly no motive for this boy to show up and pal around with the same four people he tried to _kill_ if your story—"

"It's not a story!"

"Could it have been someone else with a similar trait?"

"No! He was wearing the same outfit, the same weapon... the only difference was the mask. There was blood on his coat!"

"Winter—"

"With all due respect, sir, I'm not stupid and I'm _not_ losing my mind. I saw him. I don't know how he did it, but... there has to be something."

Another resigned sigh. "I know _you_ believe that."

"Sir!" she cried out, indignant.

_"Silence."_

Sky shrank a little lower behind the bushes, trembling like a leaf.

"If you suspected him of criminal activity, you should have come to me. You should have _reported_ this. Instead you accosted a faunus who is innocent by all accounts except your own, _in front of a crowd._ Do you have any _idea_ what kind of trouble that causes?! Tensions are high enough as it is. We have two units _missing,_ and now instead of looking for them I'm cleaning up your mess."

"I—"

 _"No._ You are benched, Schnee. Stay away from Wukong, and... I'm going to need you to keep your weapons on the ship for a few days."

Ironwood left, his footsteps making heavy _thumping_ sounds against the dirt path. For a moment, the garden was silent and still once again. Then, quietly, "I _saw_ him."

RSPR stood there for a long time, waiting for Winter to leave. Even once she finally did, no one spoke. Sky couldn't have even if he'd tried. He felt like he'd just woken up from the dream, the one everyone had, where you tipped over backwards and then you're sitting up in bed with your heart racing, knowing that something is terribly wrong.

"I'm beginning to think Blake was right about that family," Ren mused, his brow furrowing. "Weiss might be the exception rather than the rule."

"No." Sky shook his head. "Something isn't right here." He snapped his fingers a few times, waiting. There was something at the tip of his tongue, something _big,_ and he was petrified that he'd miss it, that someone would distract him and it would vanish.

"You mean... you think Sun _was_ there?" Ruby frowned. "That doesn't seem likely."

"I... I think she saw him, but I don't think Sun was there."

"What—"

"Torchwick!" he burst out. In a sudden fit of agitation he began pacing back and forth, his mind whirling. "We thought he had some kind of mind control, right?"

"It turned out he didn't," Ren said. "Where are you going with this?"

"What if it wasn't mind control?" He slapped his own forehead. _"Gods,_ I'm an idiot. You remember that night, before..." he stopped pacing, shook his head. "Well, you know. Woodacre. I thought I saw someone with red eyes, but I figured I was just... I don't know! It was stupid to ignore it but there were bigger things to worry about."

"So..." Ruby scratched her head. "Someone with red eyes...?"

"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "Yeah! I think I bumped into someone like that after that first fight with Torchwick, too! What if there's someone else, someone we haven't seen before, who's been influencing things?"

"You mean Shoulder?" Pyrrha suggested.

"Uh..." He found himself shaking his head without quite knowing why. "That's... she's different. I would've noticed if she was near me. This person felt less dangerous than her. But, uh, that's kind of everyone, so..."

Ren hesitated. "It still feels like there are a lot of unanswered questions."

"That's the thing!" Sky waved his hands frantically. "It wouldn't make any sense, but I've been seeing stuff too!" He paused. "That sounded wrong, but... uh, you know the guy who I..."

Ruby nodded.

"I keep thinking he's walking past me. He isn't, definitely not, but I had just assumed it was me being... hung up on everything." Sky started pacing again, running his hand through his hair. "But it doesn't make sense. I only ever see him in crowds, and I feel like... I should be dreaming about him too, right? But I don't. What if there's someone who can make people see things, and they were there that night? They made Winter see Sun."

"Okay..." Ren said slowly, "But... why?"

Pyrrha's eyes went wide. "Remember what the General told Winter? Things were already tense. There was the hijacking, then a very public incident between Weiss and the White Fang that led to her being badly hurt. Even the matches leading up to it—both of Alabaster's fights were with teams that specifically targeted Blake. The same thing happened to Sun and Velvet. There were almost as many people booing as cheering in all those fights."

Ren thought that over for a moment. "I think you're right," he decided. "I can remember during the fight with Torchwick, when Pyrrha was protecting Ruby—she wasn't looking in the right direction."

"I could have sworn I saw him circling around," Pyrrha agreed. "It's not control, it's an illusion."

"Whoa." Ruby glanced between the three of them. "That's... someone's trying to do something really, _really_ bad. I mean, why else would anyone want to pit people against each other during the _Vytal Festival?"_

"We need to tell Ozpin," Ren agreed.

"I'll do it."

Sky turned to stare at Pyrrha. She wasn't looking at any of them. Her head was craned over her shoulder, towards the distant woods. Her whole body was tense. "I need to speak with him about something else, anyway."

"Oh." Ruby hesitated. "Um, okay."

Pyrrha hugged both arms around her middle and looked towards them, her expression bordering on panicked. "Is... is it alright if we spend the rest of the day together? After we tell Brine, that is."

Sky stared at her. "Uh... this is kind of time-sensitive, isn't it?"

She looked at the floor. "I know. I do. I just... I need some time." It said a lot about her expression, the tone of her voice, and the way she'd been holding herself for the past few days that none of them said a word. Then, sounding strangely brittle, "Perhaps... a movie?"

"If you want to," Ruby said. "But, um... I know I keep asking this but are you okay? You seem..."

"I'll be alright," Pyrrha promised. "I just... I'll talk to Ozpin tomorrow, and I'd rather enjoy the rest of tonight."

Sky exchanged a baffled look with Ren, whose forehead was creased with worry. But... it wasn't like they were going to say _no._ There was just something inherently unsettling about a request like that.

* * *

"You can't seriously not care, Sun!" Neptune burst out, gesturing so emphatically with one hand that he almost slapped Jaune across the face. Blake had known him for about fifteen minutes, now, and he'd made the best first impression out of _anyone_ she'd met in the past several _years._ "I mean, we're at a _peace festival_ and some crazy lady pulls a sword on you—"

"She's not crazy!" Weiss snapped.

"Oh, _yeah,_ because attacking people for no reason is just—"

"Maybe she was wrong, but I'm sure there's some explanation for _why."_

"Guys!" Sun's tail lashed agitatedly behind him. "I swear, I'm really not that upset!"

"I don't understand why not!" Blake studied his expression. The grin _looked_ genuine, but that was almost worse—like he was so used to reactions like that, they no longer even registered. She'd been hiding so long that every flinch or whisper behind her back felt raw.

Sun shrugged. "I mean, I don't like her that much but I don't want the whole festival to turn into... me being angry at someone I don't even know. This place is _fun,_ let's go do something!"

Neptune huffed and folded his arms. "Yeah, no. Still mad."

"Aw." Sun clapped him on the back. "Thanks, man."

"I'm just confused." Jaune grinned sheepishly. "She seemed a lot more... collected, before."

"So?" Cardin said. "People crack up all the time."

"She is not _cracked!"_ Weiss stopped walking, setting her feet and glaring at all of them. "And I _don't_ appreciate you all talking about her behind her back!"

"What, you're _defending_ what she just did?" Blake pointed towards the coliseum. "Because that? It's exactly what I expect from Leonardo in a few years."

Weiss slashed her hand down and snapped, "Enough." Then she whirled around and stormed off. Blake made a frustrated, inarticulate noise and then let her head fall forward until she was staring at the cobblestones. Cardin began to clap, mockingly slowly.

Jaune cleared his throat. "Hey, uh... I'm not saying what happened back there was okay, but... I've got older sisters, and one of them could murder someone—or, like, a _bunch_ of someones—and I'd still want to hear her side of the story. So."

"She doesn't defend her father like that," Blake insisted, even though it already felt like the bottom had dropped out of her stomach.

Sun raised his hand, as though he was in class. "Hey, uh... isn't this the part where you go after her?"

"I—" she paused. "I'm not sure she wants to talk to me right now."

Cardin snorted. "Yeah, sure. Let her seethe." Blake muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath and walked off to look for her partner. _Cardin is so much worse when he's right._ Thankfully it didn't happen often.

It wasn't hard to find her. Weiss hadn't gone far—she was standing down one path, between several food carts and at the edge of the shadow of the coliseum. She'd taken off the eye patch, and the eerie black eye was open, watching the crowd sightlessly. Blake looked away from it, trying to swallow past an acidic burning sensation in the back of her throat.

Her partner saw her approaching. She didn't run—her posture practically screamed confrontation. Maybe she'd only walked away from the argument so that they'd have it in relative privacy. Blake lowered her head when she got close, feeling uncomfortably like the blind eye was staring into her. "I'm sorry."

Weiss seemed taken aback. "Oh."

"She's your sister. I've seen enough of Ruby and Yang to know that can..." she stopped before she said something like _mess with your judgment,_ but couldn't think of anything else to replace it with.

"Look. She didn't handle that well—I can see that. And it's obvious to any reasonable person who's ever met him that Sun isn't part of the White Fang."

Blake nodded. "I know. I just... I got caught up." She sighed. "Winter doesn't seem like the hotheaded type."

To her amazement, Weiss actually _laughed_ at that. "Oh, she is. It, well... it runs in the family." Her lip curled. "But that's the thing. She isn't stupid, and she doesn't fly off the handle like that without being provoked, a _lot._ But there's no way Sun helped set that trap."

"So..." Blake hesitated.

"So what _happened?!"_ Weiss burst out. Her eyes narrowed, making the pale line on the one eyelid stand out. "It just doesn't make sense." Her shoulders slumped. "Either she attacked someone for _no reason,_ or... she's seeing things. And that's... it's not like her."

Blake clenched a fist, hard enough that her nails dug in and her palm started to ache, wishing she had the nerve to break skin. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I... if you think something else happened, I'm willing to reserve judgment."

"I don't even know what else it could have been." Weiss huffed, blowing a bit of hair away from her good eye. "It doesn't make _sense."_

In desperation, Blake cast about for something, _anything_ else to talk about, to take their minds off of everything. "Would you like to go somewhere?" she asked. "I mean, we'd planned to, and..."

Weiss blinked. "Right." Then she managed a smile—the smug, vicious kind. "It's certainly a victory worth celebrating."

"Should we look for somewhere to eat?"

"Blake," Weiss said, deadpan. "Throw a rock. It's bound to hit someone selling food."

This was very nearly true, though they decided to walk around for a while before settling on anyplace in particular—partly because the weather was nice and partly because the stall food varied _spectacularly_ in quality.

Strolling around was easy. Making conversation right after an argument like that was less so.

"You're not wearing the..." Blake trailed off, gesturing to Weiss' face.

"It gets uncomfortable after a while. Especially in the heat like this." She smirked. "I'll try not to terrify children."

"It's not the _eye_ that makes me worry about you terrifying children."

"Oh, _hilarious."_

They joked about it, but when they finally settled in at a stall with benches and a screen displaying the tournament, a little boy stopped in his tracks and pointed. His mother ushered him hurriedly away, apologizing over her shoulder as she went, but Weiss still looked put out. "Is it _that_ unsettling?"

"What?"

Weiss quirked her right eyebrow, the one that was bisected by the scar. "The eye."

"I'm sure he was just curious. It looks unusual, and kids stare at things all the time."

"That's not what I asked."

Blake looked at the ground and tried to smile. "Well, it's intimidating."

 _"That_ I already knew." Weiss snickered. "I think I understand why Goodwitch glares at us so much, now. It's _fun."_

They sat in silence for a moment. Weiss eventually continued, "That's still not what I was asking. I meant... does it bother you?"

"A little," Blake admitted. "It's a reminder, and it was—" she cut herself off.

"If you say 'my fault,'" Weiss said, the black eye boring into her. She didn't finish the threat. Instead she just sighed and handed the man behind the counter a credit card. "It's really not—"

"I know." Blake tapped her fingers against the stool she was sitting on. "Still."

"Ugh. You're impossible, you know that?"

The man ran the card through. Weiss tensed, almost imperceptibly, then relaxed when it let out a small beep and the transaction completed.

"What..." Blake gestured at her, lost for words. "What was that?"

Weiss took the card back and tucked it away. "I'm just... a little bit worried that something might happen. We didn't part on the best of terms."

"Would he cut you off like that? After..."

"I suppose not." Weiss shrugged. "At this point I'm well past any possible frame of reference I might have had for what he'll do. Whenever I try to imagine what he's thinking it's just..."

"Blue screen of death?"

"That."

"Better than actively trying to drag you home, isn't it?" Blake suggested. Weiss stared at her.

"Did you just say something _optimistic?"_

Blake flushed. "What?"

"Who are you? Really?'

"Shut up."

"Hang on, this explains everything—there's a shape-shifter, and _that's_ who Winter saw at Woodacre!"

Blake turned away and glared grumpily at the screen. Then she did a double take. "Hey, that's Velvet!"

The view was arguably better here than in the stands—there were occasional close-ups to the combatants as they fought, showing off some impressive hand-to-hand fighting from Velvet—and the looks on her and her teammate's faces. They were grim, tense, as though they were fighting for _real._ Sure enough, a moment later a shot of their opponents caught one of them holding up a fist with two fingers extended, moving his hand in a bouncing motion.

 _"Honestly,"_ Weiss hissed.

There was a disapproving grunt from their server as he came out with two _gigantic_ bowls of noodles. "Can't believe how many of those types there are," he grumbled. Blake's heart sank, but a moment later he followed it up with, "They looked like such nice boys, too, but the _minute_ that girl walks out to face them..." He seemed to realize who he was talking to. "Though I guess you two already knew about that." From behind his bushy grey mustache, he flashed a mischievous smile. "I recorded your fight, by the way. _Very_ satisfying."

Blake gaped after him as he turned and walked over to another customer. Then she turned her attention back to Velvet and Yatsuhashi. They were obviously winning—both were in the green, and their opponents were well into the yellow. _Good._

"There's something wrong with this picture," Weiss said, propping her chin up on one hand.

"People like that are unfortunately pretty common."

"Maybe." Weiss prodded at her meal. "But what are the odds, really? Brine and Raspberry would both be respectful towards faunus opponents, and they fight all-human teams. Ermine is paired with Sun, then us." She spread her hands. "And two pairs from the same school being matched together is rare enough as it is."

Blake frowned. "You might have a point, but... it seems like a little much to declare a conspiracy theory."

 _"Something_ is going on," Weiss said. Her injured eye caught the light, and Blake saw her own doubtful expression reflected in it. "Winter wouldn't have snapped like that for no reason—and _maybe_ it was just a fluke, but..."

"Right." Blake sighed. "No such thing as coincidence."

"Oh, there is." Weiss flashed a smirk. "Just not when the alternative is worse for us."

* * *

When Yang and Nora returned to the stands after their match, exultant and flushed with adrenaline, they met Dove and Russel both looking preoccupied.

"What's up?" Nora asked. She couldn't help feeling a little bit miffed. Reality couldn't give them, like, ten minutes to enjoy the post-fight afterglow?

"Okay, first!" Russel held up his index finger. "You just threw a guy at another guy, and I want to take a moment to acknowledge it."

"Thanks!" She beamed—it was nice to be appreciated.

"But," Dove said, wincing, "Raspberry had some news."

"Are they okay?" Yang asked, sobering up at once.

"They're fine, but they said they're pretty sure there's an illusionist around." Dove explained what Sky had guessed, and by the end of it both Yang and Nora had completely forgotten about the recent bout.

"So, wait." Yang frowned. "There's someone who can make people see things, and they're _stalking Sky?"_

"That seems to be the case, yes."

Yang seemed more frustrated than surprised. "Shouldn't we be guarding him or something?"

"That might tip them off," Russel pointed out. "Plus, he's hanging out with Pyrrha and the rest of Raspberry, so..."

With that settled—or, well, it really _wasn't,_ but there also wasn't much they could do about it—the four of them wandered over to one of the ferries. It was a short ride back to Beacon, only a minute or so, and they soon emerged blinking onto the fairgrounds. Nora bounced up and down with excitement—events like this had always been highpoints of her life, since there were attractions like jugglers and knife throwers that you could go and see even if you didn't have any money with you. As long as you paid the entrance fee, of course. Or snuck in. (That part was even more fun than the juggling.)

Then, just a few feet outside the airship, someone called out to them. Nora turned around and froze. Winter Schnee was staring at them, one hand on her hip, her expression taught with _something—_ maybe anxiety, maybe anger, probably some of both.

"You four are acquainted with my sister, correct?" she said, striding forward to block their way into the field of tents and stalls. They exchanged nervous glances, then nodded. "Do you know where she is? I need to speak with her."

"Uh..." Russel chuckled nervously. "Well, there's something you _might_ want to know before you do anything cra— _oof."_ Nora gently removed her elbow from his side, still smiling.

"We believe you," Dove said, stepping forward a little. It was definitely better for him to handle the talking part than Russel. Then again...

"Well, kinda," Russel said, wiggling his hand in a so-so gesture.

"We believe you saw Sun," Yang clarified hastily. "But he wasn't there."

Winter stared at them for a few seconds, her eyes narrowed. "If this is some kind of joke—"

"There's an illusionist," Nora explained. "I mean, one of our friends thinks there is, and he's pretty smart. Plus a lot of weird things start to make sense."

Winter hesitated. "Would the four of you be willing to tell me which friend, exactly?"

"Of course—" Dove started to say.

"...As soon as we ask him!" Nora added.

Yang nodded firmly. "He might not want to get dragged in front of the General, but we'll tell him that it would be a really good idea to talk to you."

"I suppose that will have to do," Winter said, her mouth twisting into a frown. "Be quick about it."

"Of course." Dove cleared his throat. "As for Weiss, I think Alabaster and a few others are out in the fairgrounds."

Winter's shoulders slumped slightly. "Better to leave that until later," she decided. "Until I'm sure _I_ believe your... theory." With a curt parting nod, she turned on her heel and vanished onto the ferry heading back to the coliseum.

Russel breathed out for several seconds. "That family's blood pressure must be through the roof," he grumbled. "They have to deal with each other all the time."

Dove shrugged. "Weiss isn't that bad."

 _"Anymore,"_ Russel clarified. "And I'm pretty sure that's because a week in Beacon would mellow _anyone_ out." Nora stared at him. She wasn't alone. He looked around, confused, and said, "What?"

"Russel," Dove said patiently, "we crashed an airship into the school in the first week."

"Yeah!" Russel folded his arms as if that completely proved his point. "Think about it. You don't sweat the small stuff now that you've known true terror, do you?"

Nora took one look at Dove's face, and she and Yang both dissolved into helpless laughter.

"This is why Goodwitch hates us," he pointed out.

"Well." Russel grinned. "One of many reasons."


	44. Covalent Bonds [5]

The whole next day was spent hanging out with Sun and Neptune, much to Jaune's puzzlement. It was good, he supposed, that Blake and Weiss seemed to have worked things out, and that the guy didn't have any hard feelings. All that said...

"Hey, check this out!" Sun hopped up onto the pointed roof of one stall and balanced on one foot windmilling his arms.

Neptune sighed. "Dude, you're going to f—and there he goes." There was a muffled thump, and moments later Sun emerged with twigs in his hair and a broad grin on his face. It was _unnerving_ how well he would have fit in on team BRYN.

His partner Neptune seemed less... _energetic,_ and he had a familiar air of mixed frustration and bemusement Jaune was used to associating with Dove or Ren. Blake had talked to him yesterday, which meant that he wasn't flat out glaring at Weiss anymore. The two were still studiously avoiding making direct eye contact, though, so Jaune figured it was best not to push them. It occurred to him that some people might have been stressed out or put off by the latent tension threatening to break out in argument. It would have taken a latent threat of _murder_ for Jaune to break a sweat—if the early days of his team had been good for anything, it was that.

"Seriously though," Sun said, jogging backwards for a few paces so that he could look at them face-to-face. "You never explained the whole story about the eye."

Weiss rolled her eyes. Both of them—she wore the patch most of the time, but apparently it got uncomfortable. Sun had oohed and ahhed when he saw it uncovered the first time, proudly proclaiming it 'badass.' Jaune was pretty sure he'd found a grey hair behind his ear this morning.

"Uh, not that you have to!" Sun said hurriedly. "If, y'know, it's a painful memory or whatever." Neptune put a hand to his face.

"It's a long story. Involving the White Fang."

"I told you!" Sun pointed at Neptune. "I told you Beacon was crazy!"

"I believed you. I believed you even more when I heard about the _airship thing—"_

Jaune choked. "Who told you about that?!"

"The professor guy," Sun said, blinking innocently. "The one with the giant mustache. You'd think he'd be mad someone blew a hole in his classroom."

"He's weird." Cardin shrugged as if that explained everything—which, in the case of Port, it probably did.

"Right." Sun paused. "Are you _sure_ I can't meet—"

"You can," Weiss interrupted, "As soon as—"

"Nothing explosive or flammable, and somewhere you don't have to deal with it," Sun finished, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, I'm not _that_ bad."

"It's not just you we're worried about," Blake pointed out.

"Wait." Neptune's eyes narrowed. "If _you_ aren't dealing with whatever horrible thing happens, who is?"

There was an awkward silence, wherein Jaune was pretty sure that all of them thought _Dove_ and then stayed quiet because it would have been mean to actually _say_ it. Plus there was this unspoken feeling that whoever named him out loud might have to do something stupid like offer to _help_ him. But, well... Yang would give him a hand. Probably. Once she was done egging Nora on.

Cardin started to laugh. "You volunteering?"

"No!" Neptune waved his hands in front of him. "Nope, no, definitely not, let's not get crazy—"

"I'm telling you, it's _rigged!"_

All of them turned around to find a girl standing a few feet away with her hands on her hips. Jaune's eyes nearly watered from the riot of color, though he did notice that there was a pink tail behind her. Sun froze halfway through grabbing Neptune's shoulder. She'd shouted loud enough that almost everyone around them was looking at her.

A boy was standing in front of her, tall and dark-skinned and dressed well enough that it made Jaune a little self-conscious. The sight of the two of them together jogged his memory—they were the unlucky pair that had been pitted against Pyrrha and Ruby in the doubles.

"It was bull, sure, but I don't know if—"

The girl scoffed. "Come _on._ First four complete _jerks,_ then Pyrrha freaking Nikos? _Two_ first year faunus up against team Mouthbreather? I'm not _dumb,_ I can tell when I'm getting screwed!"

"I know it's suspicious..."

The two of them walked off after that, with neither seeming to have noticed that they'd drawn the attention of almost everyone around them. Jaune looked back at his teammates, expecting to see similar confused expressions of his own. Instead, he found himself watching Blake and Weiss with growing dread. They were doing that thing they sometimes did, communicating without even speaking through significant widening of the eyes and little jerks of the head.

"If you guys disappear in the middle of the night again," Jaune threatened, "I'm giving up and becoming a farmer."

Both of them winced. "We weren't going to," Weiss said, a little defensively. "It's just a lot to explain..."

Cardin snorted. "Sure."

"We thought the same thing," Blake said, "about the matches being set up. But I don't think it's just so that faunus teams will lose—it seems like someone is trying to make the divide worse."

"Holy crap!" Sun's eyes went huge. "Like with me almost getting cut up?"

"Yes."

"So someone from Atlas that can give specialists orders?" Neptune suggested.

Weiss shook her head. "Winter wouldn't deliberately start conflict during the Vytal Festival of all times."

Neptune made a face as if he doubted that. "Maybe they didn't say that was what they were doing. They could've just told her to attack him."

"She wouldn't attack someone for no good reason, either."

"It's what soldiers are supposed to _do,"_ Neptune said peevishly.

Weiss shot him an irritated look, which made him cringe back a little—the dead eye was eerie enough when she _wasn't_ glaring at you. "Let me put it this way. If Jaune told me to go and attack that Flynt guy without explaining why, I'd tell him to jump in a lake. Winter and I were raised in the same house, and neither of us appreciate being ordered around blindly."

Jaune wasn't so sure about that—it _was_ sort of what soldiers were supposed to do, and anyway he got the impression Winter was loyal to the General. But, well... Weiss knew her better than he did, so maybe she was right?

"General Ironwood didn't have any motive," Blake interjected before Weiss and Neptune could start arguing in earnest. "That just made him look bad. It's not _only_ human and faunus tension that's being ratcheted up, a lot of people are starting to get angry with Atlas, too."

"So... who would want to make people angry with _both_ faunus and Atals?" Jaune asked.

"I don't know, but we have a lead from the research we were doing before that we never got a chance to follow up on."

Weiss inhaled sharply. "Mountain Glenn."

"What?" Sun looked around. "Seriously, _what?_ I feel like I just walked into a theater halfway through a James Frond movie."

"Well..." Blake shifted uncomfortably.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about what you're about to say?" Jaune rubbed at his forehead, as if that could soothe the incoming stress away.

"We may have done some investigating during those teambuilding missions."

He dropped his hand, and then very deliberately looked at the jagged line on Weiss' leg. "So..."

"Ooh!" Sun perked up. "I know this one! Chainsaw, right?"

 _"Chainsaw?!"_ Jaune shouted, loudly enough that several other people turned to stare.

"Um..." Weiss cringed a little. "Well, there was a base at a defunct logging company..." Cardin started laughing. Jaune glared at him.

"What does that have to do with Mountain Glenn?" Neptune asked.

"We found a tunnel with train tracks running through it," Blake explained. "When we looked on a map, the only subway line that goes that far leads to Mountain Glenn."

"But there's absolutely nothing there worth blowing up," Weiss finished. "So we have no idea what they're doing."

"Blowing up?" Jaune frowned. "I mean, they might not be blowing anything—oh _god,_ there's more isn't there?"

Blake's ears pulled back, sheepish. "They... may have had bombs." Cardin doubled over, muffling near-hysterical snorts of laughter into one fist. Sun just stared from Blake, to Weiss, then back, awe written all over his face.

"Okay." Jaune took a few deep breaths. "Okay. You guys know it's a genuine _miracle_ neither of you died, right?" Blake looked appropriately guilty, but Weiss just seemed irritated.

"Yes, yes," she said, rolling her eyes. "But are you going to help us investigate or not?"

"Yes!" Sun hissed, pumping a fist. "We are _so_ in!" He paused, realizing they were all staring at him. "What? We're eliminated anyway, we might as well do something cool."

Neptune hung his head. "I hate you sometimes."

* * *

To be perfectly honest, BRYN didn't exactly jump on the whole 'help prove Winter innocent' thing. It could totally have been done faster, and Russel was fully aware of this, and his whole team knew, too. But, well... yesterday, they'd knocked on RSPR's door and been told by Ren that they were having a movie night. The look on his face said that it was much more important than it sounded, and he even gently refused Nora's offer to join them, saying that they could hang out some more tomorrow morning.

That had _never happened._ In the end they had retreated to their own room, all feeling an odd sense of foreboding. Something was wrong—and if it was important enough for Ren to put off an evening with Nora, it was definitely important enough that they shouldn't bother Sky about Winter's request.

So they had waited, and at breakfast that morning their entire sister team had seemed so preoccupied that they'd put off asking a little bit longer. Then, _finally,_ sometime after lunch they found Ren and Sky alone at the fairgrounds, both sipping at freshly squeezed juice from a nearby cart. Nora jumped on her friend's back, and he smiled.

"Sorry about last night. Team emergency."

Yang nodded. "Yeah, we figured. Can we ask, uh..."

"I don't actually know," Ren admitted.

"Is Ruby okay?"

"Yes."

"She's in the room playing video games," Sky added. "Pyrrha went to tell Ozpin about our theory. Hopefully he takes it seriously, and if not at least Goodwitch can't complain when we go off to investigate ourselves."

"Speaking of which." Dove coughed a little awkwardly. "Would you be able to share that with Winter as well?"

"Oh." Sky looked apprehensive. "Well, uh... yeah, she probably deserves to know. I should talk to Alabaster, too."

"I'll come with you," Ren suggested. Sky gave him a grateful nod.

"And maybe our teams can do a movie night together later?" Nora shifted awkwardly. "Um. I mean, not that it's not cool to have team things or anything, I just..."

"Wanted to make sure we were okay?" Ren smiled, though neither he nor his partner commented on the movie night idea.

"Yeah." Nora gave him another hug. "You look kinda worried."

"I'm sure it will be fine," he said. Russel got the impression he was talking to himself more than them.

They ran into a bit of a snag when they tried to find Winter—namely, they had no idea how to contact her or where she might be. Their best current guess was that she might be hanging around the fairgrounds, since that was where most of the students were, which _might_ include her sister. Russel found that searching for someone in a maze of food carts and game stands took way longer than doing the same thing in, say, a forest. They kept getting distracted—justifiably, in his opinion—by people juggling flaming knives and stalls selling what they claimed was the 'hottest jerky in Vacuo.' Yang, despite all of them— _including Nora!_ —telling her not to, bought several strips of that. It was glowing an unsettlingly vivid shade of red, and nothing she did could convince Sky, Russel, or Dove to try some. Nora practically keeled over when she took her up on it, though Ren seemed to like it and even asked for another piece.

Then they veered down one row of stalls and ran into Velvet and her teammate. Russel craned his head back, blinking in open awe. He'd never been towered over by that much before. Despite his size, the guy—Yatsuhashi, if he remembered right—wasn't too intimidating, mostly because he had an easygoing smile.

"Well done earlier," Yang said, grinning.

"Thank you." Velvet looked a little uncomfortable at the praise.

"I guess we'll be seeing one of you in the singles," Russel rubbed his hands together. They had debated who to advance the night before, and eventually settled on Yang—both she and Nora were powerhouses, but her semblance was more likely to come up in a fight.

Velvet blushed. "That would be me."

"I'm glad," Dove said. Then he cleared his throat. "That is, I know you weren't sure about competing past the team rounds."

She made a face. "I'm still not sure it's a good idea. People have been..." she trailed off. "Well."

"Fuck 'em," Russel suggested. Yang kicked him in the shin. "Okay, _ouch._ I'm not wearing a kick me sign." He turned to Sky. "You'd tell me if I was, right?"

"It's not quite that simple," Velvet said, her ears drooping a little. "We've had bad luck with the matchups, and people are getting... well, I'm worried someone in the audience might start a riot."

"We have to run out of racists eventually, right?" Yang looked around, like she was begging the world to _please_ just not suck _that_ badly.

Velvet smiled a little. "Alabaster has been making some progress with that."

Russel broke out cackling. "Gods yes! I want a recording of that fight _so badly,_ did you see the look on the blond dude's face when he got knocked out?"

"Speaking of Alabaster," Dove interjected, ignoring Russel completely. "I don't suppose you happen to know where Weiss' sister is?"

Yatsuhashi frowned. "She asked us where their team was a few hours ago, but we didn't really want to talk with her any longer than we had to."

"Oh." Sky shifted his weight from foot to foot. He didn't say anything else, though—just stared guiltily at his shoes. Russel had noticed him doing that once before, too, after looking at the crowd like he'd seen someone he knew. _Weird._

"So, she's in the fairgrounds?" Nora said, gesturing around. Velvet nodded. "Thanks!"

"I'll be seeing you later!" Yang called out, tipping her a wink. Once they were back into the crowd, she started bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I watched their fight, and _man_ it is going to be the _best_ kind of painful trying to beat her. I wonder what her semblance is..." She was grinning like she'd just won the lottery.

"Your definition of fun continues to baffle and dismay me," Dove told her.

Russel glanced to his left and realized that some naïve fool had left a small pyramid of barrels behind their cart. He darted over and clambered up to the roof of the stall, standing up and breathing in the high-altitude air—ignoring, for obvious reasons, the fact that he'd been hundreds of feet higher just that morning. Then he put a hand up to shade his eyes—it was overcast and had been all day—and began scanning the crowds.

"What are you doing?" Dove asked, resigned. He didn't even bother trying to stop Nora and Yang from following him.

"Ooh!" Nora hopped up onto Yang's shoulders and pointed. "I spy with my little eye..."

About forty or fifty feet away, Russel spotted the flash of white within the crowd. After a moment, the person lifted their head and he realized that yes, that _was_ Winter, and she had noticed the pointing. He gave her a cheeky wave, and she started walking towards them. Maybe angrily, maybe just purposefully. He chose to interpret it optimistically.

"We found her," Yang proclaimed, ignoring the barrels completely and leaping off the stall. Nora did the same, though she very deliberately landed on Ren. He stumbled a little, but seemed to have braced himself in anticipation and didn't fall over. Russel climbed down like a normal person, and the six of them waited for a few awkward moments before Winter caught up with them.

"Well?" she said, looking at Sky and Ren.

"Uh." Sky rubbed the back of his head. "Maybe we can go somewhere else first?"

She scowled, but didn't put up too much of a fight when they wandered out past the edges of the fairgrounds and into the gardens. Finally, they all stopped in a clump and Sky looked nervously around.

"What?" Winter demanded. "No one followed us."

"Uh..." Sky shifted, looking embarrassed. "Well, there might be someone invisible...?"

"Explain. Now."

"I've been seeing things—okay, no, that makes it worse—what I mean is, I think there's an illusionist."

"So I've been told." Winter's expression was intensely skeptical.

"See, I only see this guy when I'm someplace crowded. It's as if he's just wandering around the festival, but he can't be."

"Because...?"

"Well, he's... uh. Not around anymore." Sky spaced out for a moment, then shook his head and continued. "It's not just that, either. My team and I fought Torchwick a couple of times, and we realized that we kept thinking he was moving around, aiming somewhere else, and then getting hit with attacks we thought we'd dodged."

"I saw it," Ren agreed. "Pyrrha was protecting Ruby, and she started moving out of the way as if she saw him circling—and that's exactly what she did see."

Winter pursed her lips. "That's hardly convincing."

"Well..." Sky spread his hands helplessly. "Part of the evidence is us thinking it's weird for you to randomly attack someone Weiss is friends with, so... it might not be super helpful convincing people that you wouldn't randomly attack someone Weiss is friends with. Sorry."

She sighed. "I suppose it's somewhat helpful knowing that not _everyone_ believes me a dangerous madwoman out to hurt faunus." There was a bite to the words that made Russel think that she hadn't managed to talk to Weiss yet—or if she had, it hadn't gone well.

Dove was probably thinking the same thing, because he cleared his throat and said, "We're planning on talking to Albaster about this, too, but my team heard about it second-hand and Raspberry were busy yesterday, so..."

Winter looked away from them for a moment, studying the trees overhead. "Thank you."

"Hey, uh..." Sky stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking awkward. "Sorry. About all the crazy crap that's going on. I guess it seems like you're in the middle of it when you didn't even do anything."

She glared at him suspiciously. "I appreciate your concern," she snapped, "but I'm perfectly fine." No one commented about the absence of the saber she normally wore at her hip.

* * *

Pyrrha wandered alone through the halls of Beacon, moving slowly, pausing to look at paintings and pieces of architecture and views through high-arched windows as if she'd never seen them before. Despite the fact that she was going to deliver urgent news to the headmaster, she moved like someone on their way to a dentist appointment—dragging out every second, desperate to linger just a little longer with every step.

She was distracted, too—so distracted that she still hadn't seen Ruby following her. Tailing someone was harder than movies made it look. She had to keep far back, since _no one_ was hanging around inside Beacon on a beautiful autumn day while the Festival was still going. It was just her and Pyrrha in the halls, and she could usually hear her partner's footsteps and guess which turns she was taking based on that. Whenever she dared, she snuck peeks around corners to make sure that she hadn't lost her.

It helped that she knew where Pyrrha was going. She wasn't taking the direct route to the Headmaster's office, though. Actually, Ruby was pretty sure they'd done at least one full circuit of Beacon by now.

Finally, Pyrrha turned and headed out across the courtyard, towards the CCT. It said a lot about the popularity of the festival that, even here, there were only a few people scattered around, and most of those were watching the fights on their scrolls. She wandered off after her partner, not bothering to keep back or be stealthy—it would only make other people stare at her, and it wasn't like she could actually hide in a wide open space like this. Pyrrha didn't look back—instead she just walked up to the tower and slipped inside. Ruby paused at the doors, peering anxiously inside. Then she, too, entered.

As she crossed the threshold, she looked around for Pyrrha. It only took a second to spot her—just across the lobby, standing off to one side, her thumb on the button for the top floor of the tower. There was no way she could hide in a tiny elevator. Ruby would have to wait until it went all the way up, then back down, and then ride after her. The tower was _huge._ She couldn't have explained why, but the idea of waiting that long was unthinkable.

"Pyrrha!" she called out, before her partner could disappear into the elevator. She froze, one foot on each side of the sliding door, and turned. Her mouth fell open. Then she bit her lip and retreated. The doors began to close.

Ruby was inside in a flash, petals shedding everywhere. The elevator began to move.

"Um... sorry," she said. "I'm kind of just now realizing that getting into an elevator when someone sees you usually means you can't talk to them."

Pyrrha stared at her.

"It's just that you seem really scared and I don't get why, because it's Ozpin not Goodwitch and we didn't even do anything crazy this time."

Little green numbers were ticking upwards—they were on fifteen, now, and Ozpin's office was the thirtieth floor. On another mad impulse, Ruby jabbed the button for floor sixteen, and they slowed to a stop.

"Sorry!" she blurted again. "I just... _please_ tell me what's wrong? Because you've never acted like this before and... um..."

"I can't."

"Oh."

Pyrrha hugged her arms around her stomach. "I want to, I do, but I promised that I wouldn't say anything to anyone." Ruby frowned. There was a little ding, and the doors opened. She didn't get off.

"Well..." Ruby fidgeted. "Is this that thing you're supposed to do, that you don't want to?"

Pyrrha nodded.

Ruby noticed that the green numbers had ticked up to twenty. She glanced at Pyrrha, then the numbers— _twenty-one!—_ and before her brain really had time to process anything she was mashing a hand on the control panel, lighting up another six floors between them and Ozpin.

"Sorry." Then, because Pyrrha looked like she might be about to _cry,_ "Yang won't get in elevators with me anymore."

Her partner let out a strangled little laugh, then put a hand to her face. "It's alright. More time to process things is..." she trailed off. "Well. I think now that I've decided, it's just a matter of not losing my nerve."

"It's that bad?" A tight nod.

Ruby tugged at her cloak, welcoming the familiar weight on her shoulders. "Um... if you don't want to do it, you don't have to."

"I don't have to," Pyrrha said miserably, "but someone does, and it's... I'd rather it was me."

"Oh."

The green numbers ticked up to twenty-seven, the last of the extra floors Ruby had added, and she had to physically restrain herself from pushing the two remaining buttons. Finally they slowed to a stop again, and she felt the familiar swooping in her stomach, this time accompanied with a generous helping of dread.

Then the doors slid open, and she was staring wide-eyed at Professor Goodwitch. "Um... hi!" she said, not really knowing what else to do.

"You..." Goodwitch had to work her jaw for a moment, too outraged to speak. "You _told—"_

"It's not her fault!" Ruby said quickly. "I just kind of followed her into the elevator and she tell me anything secret but I kept pushing buttons because Yang says I have a serious problem and that if there was a big red end-the-world button I would just—"

"Ah."

She stopped mid-ramble as the familiar voice of the Headmaster cut through her thoughts. He stepped out from behind Goodwitch. If Ruby had thought his expression might reassure her, she had been wrong—he didn't look angry or disappointed, but there was a bone-deep weariness to him that was, if anything, even more unsettling.

"Miss Nikos. Miss Rose." He didn't sound surprised to see her. "I suppose... the both of you may as well come in."

Ruby shared a wide-eyed look with Pyrrha, and they both entered the office. She looked around, finding that the distant ticking of the gears was making her anxious. Then she froze, catching sight of a _very_ familiar figure.

"Uncle _Qrow?!"_ she burst out. "What are you doing here?"

He looked up, both eyebrows raised. Then he scowled. "Oz, what the hell—"

"I'm afraid she invited herself as a plus one," Ozpin said, smiling apologetically. Uncle Qrow relaxed at that, though he was still grimacing. "I wonder... perhaps the _both_ of you had something to tell me?" He gave Pyrrha a searching look.

"No." She swallowed. "Just me, sir."

"Then you've decided?"

"Yes."

"We were just discussing the matter, as it happens," Ozpin said, gesturing to Goodwitch and Qrow. "There have been some worrying developments during the festival."

"Someone is trying to pit humans and faunus against one another," Pyrrha said. "And we think there's an illusionist that tricked Winter."

Ozpin's eyebrows shot up, and Uncle Qrow choked on a sip from his flask. "Jeez," he spluttered, his gruff voice a little muffled by coughing. "Where do you kids keep getting this stuff?"

"Um." Ruby shifted uneasily. "Well, Sky thinks someone is showing him that boy from Woodacre, and before that we were seeing things when we fought Torchwick, and it _really_ made a lot more sense when he explained it I swear!"

"We will look into it," Goodwitch promised. She glanced towards Ozpin. "Now, Miss Rose, if you could return to your dorm—"

"She can stay."

Goodwitch turned to stare at the Headmaster. "Ozpin..."

He smiled sadly, still with that same weary expression that made him look older than he was, older than _anyone_ was, older even than the kingdom they were standing in. "I'll have to explain some of this to her eventually, and it seems only fair to give Miss Nikos someone to confide in."

Pyrrha's eyes went wide. "You mean..."

He gestured to the elevator. "I'll talk as we go."

"Oz." Qrow stepped in between them and the doors. "Hang on, this isn't what we decided."

"I know." Ozpin sighed. "It's dangerous, to be sure, but there are other factors—"

"Other factors my _ass!"_

Ruby flinched, more out of shock than anything else. Not because her uncle swore—he'd taught her pretty much every bad word she knew, or he'd taught Yang who then taught her—but because he'd done it at the Headmaster. Ozpin didn't even blink.

"I know, and I do apologize, but we _don't have time._ She's acting now. We need to be ready."

"You need to promote a pawn into a queen," Qrow shot back.

"Um..." Ruby exchanged a frightened look with Pyrrha.

She had the sense that there was another conversation happening way over her head, a feeling she hadn't had since she was small and her dad and her uncle had been talking about hunting and injuries and what Uncle Qrow had been doing all night. She found herself turning to Goodwitch, who took one look at her expression and said, "If you're going to explain, you ought to start now."

Ozpin hummed distractedly, then moved to the elevator panel. He withdrew a keycard from his pocket and selected _B4._ Ruby reached out and grabbed one of Pyrrha's sleeves, partly because she was getting a _little_ anxious—nothing good ever happened in a basement in the movies—and partly because her partner was starting to shake.

They stepped inside, all five of them, and descended. "What about James?" Goodwitch asked, as the little green numbers ticked down.

"We'll fill him in afterwards. So long as we can't be sure how much time we have left, we should act quickly."

"Um..." Ruby said hesitantly. "You said you were going to explain...?"

"Tell me, Miss Rose," Ozpin began. "What is your favorite—"

"No time for that, Oz." Uncle Qrow smirked. "I'll give you the cliff notes, kid—in the story, a powerful wizard gives four young women the power of the seasons. They're real, it's magic, and your friend here is next in line."

Ruby blinked at him a few times. Then she turned automatically to Goodwitch, waiting for her to laugh or scoff or tell them to stop acting insane. She looked back steadily, showing no reaction. "Oh. Oh... _kay."_

"That's not all you told me," Pyrrha said quietly.

"Ah. Yes." Ozpin pushed his spectacles up, just as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors opened, and every thought and question was blown right out of Ruby's mind by the room that was revealed—the high arched ceilings, thick shadows, and eerie green lights that reflected off a floor polished to a mirror shine. And, at the end, two... tanks? Cases? Then she got a better look, and her heart sank.

"Wait, wait..." Ruby backed up instinctively towards the elevator. "Who's _that?"_ There was a person in one of the containers, though they were too far away to make out much other than their general shape.

"Amber," Ozpin replied. "The previous Fall Maiden."

Ruby _really_ didn't want to get any closer, but Pyrrha was following the adults and she couldn't just stay behind. She approached cautiously, flinching when she realized the two cases were connected by a series of cables. There were dials and glowing lights everywhere, and the smell of antiseptic hung thick in the air, reminding her of the days spent visiting ABSW in the hospital. A slow and steady beeping grated against her hearing, along with artificial breathing. _Life support._

"What happened to her?" There were scars across her face, ones that looked like burn marks.

"She was attacked," Ozpin said. "Killed, for most intents and purposes. And part of her power was stolen."

"They want to..." Pyrrha stopped. Rallied. "They want to give me her aura, and the powers along with it."

Ruby clapped a hand to her mouth to stop herself from retching. She thought of Jaune's semblance, tried to convince herself that it was the same thing—but it wasn't, it _wasn't._

"If you would?" Ozpin said, gesturing to the other case.

"What?" Ruby looked around frantically. "But you can't just..."

Pyrrha was already moving, gripping the edges of the machine as the lid slid upward. "I don't have to," she murmured, as if to herself, "but someone does."

Qrow nodded. "Otherwise whoever did this—" he pointed to Amber, "—will take the other half, and that's not gonna end too well for anyone."

"Well, if you need someone to hold onto it so badly then why doesn't one of _you_ do it?" Ruby demanded, indignant.

"The power can only reside inside a young woman," Goodwitch explained, her voice even and steady. "Miss Nikos is already older than most who inherit it, and with the method so... untested, we need conditions to be as similar to a natural transfer as possible."

"Then I could do it!" Ruby swallowed hard. "I mean..." She groped for words. It seemed monstrously unfair that it was _Pyrrha_ who had to do this, when she'd only just _started—_ though what it was that she'd only just started, she couldn't put into words.

Uncle Qrow put his hands on her shoulders. "It's okay, kid. We're going to do everything we can to make this as safe as possible."

The glass case slid shut, and Ruby suppressed a shiver. That _thing_ definitely wasn't safe. She peered through the lid at Pyrrha, locked eyes with her. She nodded—and Ruby backed away, stunned, not knowing what she was supposed to do if her partner _wanted_ to go through with it. Or... wanted was the wrong word.

"Are you ready?" Ozpin asked, as he fiddled with some of the buttons and dials.

"Yes."

He took a deep breath, one that lifted his shoulders and then eased back out of him like a wave. "I truly am sorry it must come to this." He pressed another button. Lights flashed, and a horrible low, grating hum began, so deep that Ruby felt it in her bones rather than her ears. She couldn't look away—there was light flashing across Amber's skin, now, a dusky orange-brown, peeling away from her in tiny bright motes. They were borne upwards into a steel pipe that began to glow. The light crept forward, closer and closer to the chamber where Pyrrha lay waiting, wide-eyed, her hands curled into fists. Then those little orange motes began to pour over her, and she screamed.

Ruby tried to bolt for the case and smash it open, but her Uncle pulled her into a hug and wouldn't let go. "I'm sorry, kiddo," he murmured. "We don't know what'll happen if we stop halfway through."

She squirmed away from him, turning in desperation to look at Goodwitch. Her face was taut with worry and disgust, but she wouldn't make eye contact. Then, finally, she turned to Ozpin. He stared back, still with that strangely ancient expression, and slowly shook his head.

Ruby approached the case again. Goodwitch moved to stop her, but she darted around and placed one palm flat on the glass. She didn't move to open it—she would have, but she felt sure that Pyrrha would have asked her not to. _I don't have to, but someone does._

Maybe her partner noticed the hand there, and maybe she didn't. It hurt more to be standing this close, seeing the wrinkles etched between her eyebrows and the way the corners of her mouth were pulling down. Ruby preferred that—if she was just going to _stand_ here, then it should hurt. She didn't look at Amber, and tried very hard to convince herself that, since she had been in a coma with no chance of waking up, she must not be able to feel it.

Then, finally, the last rusty orange flecks disappeared, merging seamlessly into Pyrrha's skin. She went still, a faint sheen of sweat standing out on her brow, and the bone-rattling hum slowed and quieted and petered away into nothing. The silence was deafening.

Ozpin fiddled with the controls and the glass lid slid up. Pyrrha blinked a few times, blearily. Ruby studied her eyes, trying to tell if they had changed color at all. As far as she could tell they were the same brilliant green as always.

"Are—" she choked on the words. "Are you..." Not okay. "Can you hear me?"

"Y-yes." Pyrrha sat up, shivering, her fingers twitching.

"Miss Rose," Ozpin said. "Perhaps you should be careful of—"

Ruby wrapped both arms around Pyrrha's shoulders. She couldn't feel anything different—no faster pulse or warmer body temperature or anything like that. It was terrifying, not being able to tell if her partner was okay or not, but she ignored that and she ignored Ozpin, and she ignored pretty much everything except hugging Pyrrha as tightly as she could or making sure that she wasn't crushing her by accident.

"So." Uncle Qrow cleared his throat. "Do you, uh... feel anything?"

"I'm not sure," Pyrrha said. "I think... I'm hungry."

Ozpin chuckled at that. "Well. That's encouraging."

Ruby wasn't so sure. She could feel Pyrrha's heartbeat, and was pretty sure that it wasn't supposed to be going that fast. Which, well... probably part of that was just leftover from the... the transfer.

"We should go find Ren and Sky," she suggested, gently helping Pyrrha up and out of the case. Really she just wanted to get out of this room, back into the familiar hallways of Beacon. Ozpin nodded. He looked more relaxed, now, like this had gone off without a hitch, and she couldn't help resenting him for it.

The second elevator ride was almost as tense as the first. Goodwitch wouldn't or couldn't meet their eyes, and Ruby wasn't sure how she was supposed to react to Uncle Qrow. Pyrrha wasn't saying a word—she was just staring off at nothing, like she'd been doing a lot the past few days. At least now she knew _why._

It was a relief to get out of the CCT. They passed a few of the same people—the whole thing had probably only taken about twenty minutes, which was staggering. Pyrrha kept shivering. Unsure of what to do, Ruby reached out to fiddle with her cloak. _Wait, that's it!_ She unpinned it, then swept it off her shoulders and onto her partner's. Pyrrha stiffened in surprise, her hand going up to grip the hood.

"You don't have to—"

"I know."

Pyrrha frowned. "It's _cold."_

The sun was out, and despite the gentle breeze it was, if anything, a little warmer than when they'd first entered the tower. Ruby furrowed her brow. "Um... well, we can go back to the dorm and get some blankets."

They did just that, hurrying through the deserted hallways. Pyrrha kept glancing over her shoulder, which made Ruby start doing the same thing, and she started feeling anxious and exposed. Part of that might have been that she almost never went outside without her cloak, but she didn't really mind that—not when she could see her partner drawing it tighter around herself.

Finally they arrived at the dorm, and Ruby unlocked it with her scroll. The second she opened the door, she almost ran over Sky. He turned, grinning, said, "Hey, I thought you were supposed to be..."

He trailed off. The color drained out of his face, his eyes went huge and rolled up, like he was on the edge of fainting. Then he stumbled back, caught himself on one of the bedposts, and tripped to the ground with a heavy thump. Ruby saw Ren stand up from where he'd been sitting in the corner, alarmed.

"Whoa," Ruby said, stepping inside to give him a hand up. "Are you okay? I thought you were only seeing stuff when it was crowded."

He scuttled backwards on his hands and feet, until his back hit the wall. When she turned around, she realized that he was staring directly at Pyrrha, and it clicked. _His semblance._

"What _are_ you?"

"Sky," Ren said, with forced calm. "It's just Pyrrha."

He shook his head rapidly. Ruby could see him hyperventilating, his chest rising and falling in a rapid, fluttery sort of way. Ren knelt down next to him and put a hand on his back. His breathing slowed, and his wild staring eyes seemed to focus on them properly for the first time.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

Ruby swallowed. She'd promised not to say anything, but she'd had no idea it was going to be this difficult—or that Sky would know something was wrong right away. She opened her mouth to tell him that they couldn't say, but Pyrrha touched her shoulder and she stopped.

"We'll tell you," she said firmly. Ruby did a double-take, but she didn't argue. Didn't _want_ to argue. "But... could we just have something hot to drink, first?"

Sky nodded a few times. He still looked like he'd just seen a ghost, but he was a little less shaky. "I'll get hot chocolate." Then he escaped through the door and disappeared.

Pyrrha went and sat down on her bed, pulling the edges of the cloak closer around her. Ruby sat on one side, resting her head on her shoulder. Ren, after a moment's hesitation, took the spot to her other side and laid an arm across both of their shoulders. His semblance washed over her, and Ruby realized suddenly that she was exhausted.

A few minutes later, Sky returned with a tray, on top of which were four steaming mugs of hot chocolate. He grinned. "Marshmallows and whipped cream," he said, handing one to Ruby. Then, "Dark chocolate," this one for Ren, and "Milk chocolate with a bit of vanilla extract." He flinched when Pyrrha's fingers brushed against his, but then he smiled apologetically and took a spot next to Ren.

"So," he said, his voice wavering. "What... what just happened? It feels like you're possessed or something."

Pyrrha took a deep breath, and began to talk.


	45. Covalent Bonds [6]

The coffee was scalding, black and unsweetened and so bitter she nearly choked. Pyrrha drank it anyway. Too quickly—it burned her tongue. It went down hot, searing her throat, and doing nothing at all to ease the icy feeling in her stomach.

She was hungry, too, hungrier than she could ever remember being in her life. It had been there when the transfer first ended. When she woke up this morning the empty aching had intensified, like a freezing void had opened up. So she attacked the cafeteria buffet, hardly tasting any of it, and starting to feel heavy and uncomfortable, but never _full._ Then she bit into a dish she didn't recognize in the slightest—some kind of stew from Vacuo with flecks of red in it—and felt heat blooming on her tongue, in her throat. It hurt, but it was _hot,_ and warmed her insides almost as much as the hot chocolate had last night. She finished it in a near-frenzy, but it wasn't _enough,_ and without really even thinking about it she reached out and snagged something else she remembered being close to it, a few cubes of meat and vegetables speared through with a stick and covered in a bright green glaze. It was spicier than the stew, and her nose was starting to run. She'd eaten half of it before she noticed the bark of startled laughter and realized she'd just stolen something right off Yang's plate.

She froze, dropping what was left of it with a tiny clatter. "I'm sorry!" she blurted out. Everyone was staring at her—all three teams had gathered for breakfast, and she flushed dark red under all the attention. It was easier to focus her attention on BRYN and ABSW. They all seemed surprised or amused or mildly disgusted, rather than anxious.

Yang blinked at her a few times, then chuckled again. "Geez," she said. "Did you not eat dinner or something?"

Pyrrha frowned. "I... oh. No, I didn't. I'm so sorry!'

"Nah, it's no big deal." Yang smiled warmly at her. Without even breaking eye-contact she made a grab for Russel's plate.

He smacked her hand away. "No. Shoo. Go steal from Ruby. She's your little sister, that's what they're for."

Pyrrha tried for a smile, but didn't quite manage it. Her fingertips were tingling, and the cold feeling had returned with a vengeance now that the hot food was gone. She thought about going back to the table for more, but stopped—more out of an obscure sense of embarrassment than anything else. Some of the others were staring, and her teammates had already been on high alert for any odd behavior. So instead she got more coffee and drank it without letting it cool—fantasizing for half a second about fire, the raging molten heart of a volcano, _burning._

"Hey."

She jumped when Ruby spoke, then turned around and smiled apologetically. "Look, um... if you're not feeling well, we don't have to go to the arena."

"I might be called up," Pyrrha pointed out.

Ruby shrugged. "Meh."

 _"Meh?"_ Yang crossed her arms and mock-glared at her. "Did you just _meh_ the Vytal Tournament? Who are you and what did you do with my little sister?"

Jaune grinned. "Meh," he echoed.

Russel threw his hands up in disgust. "Does _anyone_ except us understand how important this is?" he demanded. But, since it was Russel, everyone only laughed. He cracked a smile seconds later. "However shall we guard the peace if we don't try to kill each other in friendly sport?"

Dove snorted. "Who fed you that line?"

"Excuse you, I can be witty if I want!"

"With old-fashioned phrasing?"

"I read trashy fantasy novels, _okay?"_

They devolved into bickering, and Ruby tugged gently at Pyrrha's sleeve. "Seriously, though. We can skip it if you want—it's just a game."

"No." Pyrrha's hand twitched, and the tingling spread all the way up to her forearm. "It's... I can do it, I'm alright." She wasn't, but she couldn't say that. Couldn't act like a freak, or they would shut her out of the tournament.

She shook her head, then poured herself some tea. She might've just drank the hot water, but there was Chamomile there and she'd heard it was soothing. Mostly from Ren, who she considered an authority on soothing.

Pyrrha sat between him and Ruby fifteen minutes later as they settled into the stands and watched the beginning of the one-on-one fights. She didn't recognize either of the first pair called up, which made it hard to focus on them. Ren left his hand on the armrest they were sharing, an open invitation. At one point she touched his arm, letting him wash away her nerves for a moment before withdrawing. She'd hoped it might ease the empty feeling in her stomach.

Ruby's cloak was back with its rightful owner, but her partner had tweaked it so that it lay across her shoulder, and already Pyrrha understood why she wore it everywhere—it soft, thick with the smells of earth and grass stains and rose petals, and the weight of it made it feel warm and solid. She watched the fight without really seeing any of it, scrambling for an equilibrium. Whatever she'd expected, it certainly wasn't this. It didn't feel like something had been poured into her—more like something had been hollowed out.

The crowd broke out in cheering. Pyrrha glanced at the winner—a boy in green with a feather in his cap—and then let her attention wander. That was, she let it wander until she heard Professor Port call her name.

Pyrrha blinked a few times, then stood up. She moved towards the arena and took deep, calming breaths. This, at least, was familiar. But she noticed something in the announcer's box. A flash of green, and a muffled voice coming on over the speakers for just an instant, the words indistinct. _Ozpin._ She hurried forward. He was going to pull her out of the fight, she just _knew_ it, and she didn't want to give it up. Once she was in the ring the crowd erupted. There was nothing he could do—they'd feel cheated now that they'd heard her name and seen her arrive, there was no excuse he could give them that she wasn't feeling well or—"

"Hello, Pyrrha!"

It was only then that she realized who her opponent was. Across from her, Velvet was smiling warmly. It shook her. Opponents were never friendly in the ring, always solemn or cocky or frustrated. This felt more like sparring, if she ignored the crowd.

_It's just a game._

"Er. Yes, I suppose that is odd." Port's voice returned. "You're sure that she was remo—"

"Peter!" Oobleck interrupted him. "My apologies ladies and gentlemen, it appears we're having some technical difficulties."

More muffled conversation, and Oobleck coughed. "Yes, well. If we might have a moment to readjust the microphone—" Feedback rang out, and Velvet cringed and put a hand to her ears.

"Well," she said, her lip quirking into a bashful grin. "This is awkward."

They were standing nearly fifteen feet apart, so she had to raise her voice to be heard above the crowd. Pyrrha smiled back. She was glad it was Velvet—a familiar face, but not someone who would know something was wrong with her. It felt safer here, under the eyes of all the thousands of people watching the event. She could let herself melt away, have her body take over while her mind rested. There was no need to worry, because it was only a game.

Finally the microphone came back on for the third time. "Our sincerest apologies." Port spoke with his usual bluster, but Pyrrha thought he sounded a little unsettled. "Ladies, are you ready?"

They both stood to attention, Velvet taking a step back and holding her hand out. Pyrrha's eyes narrowed. As far as she could tell, her opponent was unarmed—and after the incident with PSEL, that made her instantly suspicious. She'd watched the doubles fights, though she hadn't been as much attention as she normally would, and knew that Velvet usually fought hand-to-hand, never so much as touching the box on her hip. It was a matter of wild speculation amongst audience members as to what exactly was inside.

Pyrrha stood there for a few heartbeats, tensed, feeling _real_ for the first time in almost twenty-four hours. Then, Oobleck called for the fight to begin. She charged, savoring the thrill in her blood and wishing she could keep running forever.

Velvet swung her arm. Midway through the motion lines of a pale ghostly light sketched out an outline—a _familiar_ outline. Pyrrha caught the ghostly copy of Nora's hammer on her shield, deflecting it sideways. The impact made her forearm go numb. It might be made out of light, but it had all the weight and force of the real thing. She looked over her opponent's outfit, her eyes catching on the armor on her shoulders and wrists. She had always liked the challenge of fighting without her semblance to depend on, and it was _vanishingly_ rare to find someone who wore this little metal _and_ had non-metallic weapons.

With the hammer knocked far out of line, she tried for a jab at Velvet's chest. She caught that on a shield Pyrrha recognized as Jaune's, ducking backwards a few paces before letting it dissipate. His sword was still in her other hand, and she brought it up to block the next blow from Miló. They dueled like that, back and forth, and Pyrrha realized with a thrill that this mimicry _had_ to be Velvet's semblance. So with hers tied up in summoning weapons and Pyrrha's ineffective against the hard light constructs, this would be a fight based mostly on _skill._ Her grin widened even further. She really ought to spar with Velvet more often.

Velvet soon dropped Jaune's sword—maybe because her style had become oddly boxy and a bit too predictable when she picked it up. That, and Pyrrha knew it intimately. As she should, she'd taught him quite a lot of it. She allowed herself a small smirk. _You won't win with that._

It seemed like her opponent had thought the same thing. She backed off a little, then flicked both hands and materialized a pair of daggers. _Russel._ Pyrrha had fought him before, too. Sure enough, Velvet began to bounce on the balls of her feet, circling, looking for openings. Miló shifted into its sword form and she slashed at her feet. She hopped nimbly over the attack, _just_ like he might have done. And if this were Russel, he'd want to get in close—

Pyrrha leveled her spear into the predicted charge, only for a trident to thrust towards her chest. She blocked it on her spear, then flinched away when her arm jolted painfully, as if she'd touched a doorknob in the wrong part of winter. Her brow furrowed—that had been the first hit. She hadn't taken the first hit in a long time. Her aura wasn't down far, though. She shoved past the long weapon and aimed a kick for Velvet's stomach. The blue outline shifted again, becoming Yang's gauntlets, and she caught the blow and knocked Pyrrha into a spontaneous backflip.

There was no time to adjust, that was the problem. Every time she got into a rhythm the weapon would change and disrupt it again. Pyrrha marveled at it, she really did—Velvet was practically the _perfect_ counter for her. It irked her, just a little, and what was even more frustrating was the realization that she would have relished this so much more on any other day. Right now she wanted to get lost in the fight, forget herself, let her mind go numb. That wouldn't work when her opponent was this skilled.

Velvet didn't wait for her to come back into striking distance. Instead she reached over her shoulder, and a smooth blue arc formed in her hands even as she drew back, the arrow extending into existence pointed straight at her chest. Pyrrha's stomach lurched and she exploded into motion, knocking the bow away with her shield and aiming straight for her enemy's throat. It was too fast for her to change this time, and she took a glancing blow right at the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Pyrrha was breathing hard, now. Something about that image...

She shook her head, looking up just in time to realize that Weiss' rapier was inches away from her eye. _That's a touch morbid,_ she thought, ducking behind her shield once again. Her frantic heartbeat slowed. It was just Lily's bow, the archer RSPR had fought in the team rounds. Only another contestant.

It had jarred her. For a second everything had stopped being a game, and now the frustration was building. She wasn't fighting at her best, she could _feel_ it, she was too distracted and off-balance and it was so hard to think _why_ she cared so much. A glance over her shoulder at the stands revealed her team, looking tiny from this far away. Ruby was jumping up and down, both fists in the air, while Sky cupped his hands around his mouth to cheer and Ren waved serenely.

She swallowed, rallying, and fired her rifle a few times. Velvet dodged them instead of summoning Jaune's shield again. _Interesting._

Now she was pressing in closer, and Velvet danced backwards with the help of a long falchion that Pyrrha didn't recognize. It was fairly standard for a Hunter's weapon, and she got the sense that this was a holding tactic. She didn't know what to use, so she burned something mediocre while she got a better idea of what she was doing. It seemed like she didn't get to use a weapon twice—or if she did, she needed a recharge time.

Pyrrha knocked the sword back with her shield and stepped in close. This time she wasn't even surprised when the weapon shifted, becoming two long blades held along Velvet's forearms. She was even quicker with these than she had been with Russel's daggers, and there was a strange quality to how she used them—usually her style felt patchwork, borrowed from whoever the weapon belonged to. This time she was more fluid, as if she'd practiced.

 _She's using her better ones, now._ As she should—it wasn't like she'd ever have another fight like this one.

Pyrrha stumbled, thrown, and one of the blades grazed the underside of her arm. She was still _distracted,_ and frustration was turning to anger. Why did it have to be _today,_ when she couldn't enjoy this? When she couldn't _focus_ enough to win cleanly? Her hands shook, and for a moment she felt as though she'd been punctured and her soul was leaking out, expanding, and she was looking down on her body as the tiny husk it truly was.

Velvet scored her cheek and she snapped back to herself. The crowd had gone _mad_ with jeering. She gritted her teeth. It was beneath her, letting something like that happen.

Another shiver. She could feel the wind picking up, whipping through the stands and blowing hats off some of the civilians. Velvet paused, glancing around in confusion, and Pyrrha aimed for her face. A long blue shaft appeared in mid-twirl, and she shoved out with both hands and drove Pyrrha back. She recognized Sky's halberd and felt something twisting inside, molten hot, and for a second she was thawed, warmed to her toes. Then it slipped away, and she was attacking in a sudden frenzy.

 _Stupid._ If there was one thing that Sky's style had become well adapted for, it was being suddenly bombarded with rapid attacks. Velvet, Pyrrha soon realized, was _influenced_ by the flaws of the fighters she borrowed from but not _limited,_ exactly. Sky was slower, for one thing, and still a little timid in the ring. Velvet wasn't, and she smoothed out the rougher edges of his defenses with her own instincts.

Pyrrha knew how to counter him, though. He relied on momentum just like Ruby did, using both ends of his axe to deflect blows. She stopped it cold by jamming her shield into Velvet's chest, then landed a long slash across her hip. The axe vanished from Velvet's right hand and was replaced by one of Ren's twin guns. She fired with the other, and Pyrrha had to twist back and out of the way.

The wind was still going. It stirred her hair, bringing with it the smell of decaying leaves, sharp and musky. She was larger than life, now, extending into the wind. She wanted to feel it against her skin, snapping madly at her clothes, catching her in its teeth and driving her back, full of shards of ice. Something stirred, and she could feel the temperature drop. Slowly, steadily, nothing someone who wasn't looking for it would notice.

Except, perhaps, for Velvet. Her eyes widened a little and she backpedaled immediately, the blue light transforming again. It was a crossbow—Pyrrha couldn't help flinching again, and this time she was too far away to lash out with her shield. An arrow bounced off her shoulder.

It wasn't frightening, not now that she could feel the weather bending. Clouds were gathering overhead and a light misting of rain was falling. It would come down harder if she pulled, drench her to the bone and leave her shivering and exhilarated. Velvet was so tiny, _Pyrrha_ was so tiny, but she could feel something massive pressing down on her from all sides. Now she knew why they called Dust nature's wrath. The pressure was enormous, pricking at the inside of her skin, wanting to come out and _crush_ this creature in front of her.

Pyrrha shook her head. Suddenly she was adrift, being carried forcibly out to see by an unpredictable current. _It's just a game,_ she told herself, again and again. _Only a game, we're sparring, that's all..._

A quiet, thin, splintering sound. She looked down, and realized with a shock that there was frost spreading around the soles of her boots. Instinctively she knew that fire would come if she called it, too, white-hot, and soothe away a little of the coldness inside. Or else she could let the rain fall, let lightning come down on her, freeze herself to the bone and laugh with icicles forming at the tips of her fingers like claws. The wind would carry her up, and she would look down on this petty arena and—

Something smashed into the side of her head, sending her reeling. When she could focus again she saw Cardin's mace in Velvet's hand. She was wide-eyed, as if she hadn't actually expected that to work. Pyrrha stared at her for a moment, those warm and trustworthy brown eyes. Then she glanced at the aura readouts and realized that hers was nearly gone, whittled down, and Velvet was only just in the yellow.

She could win. She could lift herself into the air and call unbridled destruction from the sky, but it was only a game. Just a game. Pyrrha breathed out slowly, her breath misting in the air in front of her, and let go. She tried halfheartedly to block the next attack, but was secretly glad when the mace turned suddenly into the massive curved blade of a scythe and collided with the side of her neck.

Pyrrha was knocked flat on her back. She lay there, gasping, listening to the sound of the buzzer going off. Her whole body felt numb. Velvet reached down and offered her a hand.

_Like that's some kind of favor. Like a lamb should offer a starving lion a place to sleep..._

She didn't take it. Her fingers were trembling, _itching,_ and if she touched Velvet she might do something without even meaning to. Instead she got up on her own, dizzy and confused, and lifted her head towards the stands.

 _The Invincible Girl is dead,_ she thought distantly. The arena was far too exposed. The crowd went on forever, crying out in betrayal and rage and dismay, and some were cheering for Velvet, and still others were snarling at each other. The fight broke out somewhere Pyrrha couldn't see. There was a subtle change in the din, anger turning to pain and hatred, and when she looked around a civilian section of the stands had erupted into a sea of flailing hands and feet.

"That is enough!" Ozpin's voice snapped, reverberating through speakers all through the stadium. Pyrrha flinched at the sound of him, fighting down a mad impulse to charge at the commentator's box and... what? Some of the crowd froze where they stood—he had that effect on people. Others kept squabbling, but they lost momentum and the fight died down almost as quickly as it had started.

"Congratulations, Miss Scarlatina," Ozpin said, now speaking calmly and evenly. "And to Miss Nikos—well fought, as always. Your judgment is impeccable."

She whirled around, and a snap of wind hit the box side-on and blew a sheaf of papers straight out the window. They fluttered down like snow, landing in heaps among the jeering spectators. Pyrrha felt her lip curl—were they _mocking her?_

"Pyrrha!" She turned towards Velvet, and relaxed a touch at the sight of her small, nonthreatening smile. "Um... that was a really good match!"

"Thank you," Pyrrha said, though it came out dull. Her mind was whirling, and she barely even registered her own mouth moving. Everything was on automatic, and she started marching towards the exits. She didn't go back to her team. She kept walking until she was out of the coliseum, took the ferry to Beacon, then curled up somewhere in the woods, her body blanketed in snow as a blizzard writ in miniature raged just ten feet over her head.

* * *

Dove and his teammates sat alone in the stands the morning after Pyrrha's loss. RSPR had understandably chosen to avoid the crowds, since some fans were still frustrated and disappointed and expressing such at inappropriate moments. ABSW were supposed to be there, too, but none of them were anywhere to be found. Odd, but they ought to arrive by the time the matches actually started.

It was strange. He hadn't expected his team to get farther than RSPR in the tournament—Yang was tough, strong, and skilled, but... _Pyrrha Nikos._ She'd been acting strangely ever since, though no one wanted to suggest that she was a sore loser out loud for fear of upsetting either her or Ruby. Or, in Russel's case, because Nora had snapped at him when he brought it up in their dorm the previous evening. It was the most chastened Dove had ever seen him.

The loss alone didn't explain it anyway. She'd seemed ill the morning before, and she definitely wasn't sulking. She was irritable, to be sure, but she also seemed nervous, like she was half-expecting someone to jump out at her. Perhaps being eliminated had a bigger impact on her than it might anyone else. She had a whole public persona based around being the Invincible Girl, and that had to have taken a hit yesterday.

"Brine." Dove looked around and noticed Winter standing in the aisle beside them. Her head was held high, her posture very deliberately straight even in the face of the crowd around her muttering and giving her hateful looks.

"Oh, hi!" Yang waved. "Looking for Weiss?"

"Yes, actually."

"Sorry," Dove said, "but we haven't seen Alabaster yet. I think they're sleeping in."

"Or they ditched the tournament," Russel added, making a face. "No one treats these things with the proper gravitas these days."

Dove stared at him. "Where did you get _gravitas_ from?" Russel stuck his tongue out.

Winter cleared her throat pointedly. "And their dorm? Where is it?"

"I'm not sure if we should—" Dove started to say, but before he could complete the thought he heard Oobleck's voice over the loudspeaker.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be beginning today's festivities with Penny Polendina—a member of the very first two-person team ever entered into the Festival! She hails from Atlas, and seems quite excited to be here." Sure enough, Dove could see her heading for the ring, bouncing on every third step.

"And for her opponent," Port continued, "representing Beacon Academy, though she has strong ties to Atlas herself—" _Oh, no..._ "—Weiss Schnee!"

Silence.

Port cleared his throat. "Er... I can't quite see her just yet."

"Weiss Schnee?" Oobleck repeated. "Will someone—ah, yes, thank you."

Port's voice returned, this time on a loudspeaker Dove knew would be transmitting to the fairgrounds as well. "Will Weiss Schnee please report to the arena?"

Seconds turned to minutes. Still nothing. Dove glanced at Winter and winced—she was gripping the back of his chair rather hard.

"Well," Oobleck said, after a long, tense silence. "I suppose we'll have to find another opponent for Miss Polendina."

"Where the _hell_ is she?" Winter hissed, going for her scroll. Dove got to his feet, thinking perhaps he might check at ABSW's dorm. They _might_ have just overslept, but...

Russel sighed. "Well, there goes the neighborhood. Anyone have Alabaster's ids?"

"Ruby has Jaune's," Yang said, "but I think that's it."

In the arena, the fight had begun. Dove only caught snatches of it, since his mind was elsewhere, but he found himself goggling in dismay when Penny picked up an _entire_ pillar of ice and upended it over her opponent. He rolled away, popped to his feet, and then had to duck as several floating swords slashed over his head.

"Oh, _man!"_ Yang turned to him, eyes shining. "I can't _wait_ to fight her!"

Winter slammed a hand down on Dove's chair, and he nearly startled right out of it. "Where might they be?" she demanded.

"Uh... dining hall, dorms, courtyard, fairgrounds, they're not allowed in the Emerald Forest but that never stopped us," Russel listed, ticking each item off on his fingers. Winter snarled disgustedly and turned away. Her scroll came up to her ear.

"Weiss."

"You were just called up for a match—they already sent someone else."

"No, _listen._ Where are you?"

"That's not an answer!"

"Stay put, and _don't do anything."_

She hung up, pausing to give BRYN a steely look. "If I'm not back in twelve hours, tell Sky to take his theory to the General."

Russel snorted at her retreating back. "That wasn't ominous at all."

* * *

Winter caught them at the airfield. There was only one way into Vale, and she had managed to beat them there—Cardin wondered if she'd jumped off the floating coliseum and used glyphs to hop her way down like a demented white bunny rabbit. Either way, he wasn't pleased.

"We can explain?" Weiss wilted under her sister's glare.

"Do."

They all looked at each other. "Well, we wanted to... um..."

Winter's expression hardened. "Don't bother lying to me."

"I wasn't—"

"Yes, you were."

Weiss looked down. "We're trying to go to Mountain Glenn. We think we might be able to find a lead about who set you up, and why it seems like the matches are being fixed to cause tension between humans and faunus."

Winter blinked a few times, taken aback. "You... why _Mountain Glenn?"_

Blake and Weiss both turned scarlet. Cardin snickered, then stopped when Weiss gave him the Evil Eye—he really wished she'd keep that damn thing covered up, but it wasn't like he could tell her that. She'd burn the eye patch out of spite.

They launched into their second explanation of what they'd done on the team missions, along with a summary of the other research they'd done at one in the morning while holed up in the team bathroom. Winter took it better than Jaune—she didn't even react until Weiss admitted to having been cut by a _chainsaw,_ at which point she pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose and declared, flatly and with no room for argument, that she was coming with them.

"But..." Weiss hesitated. "You aren't going to..." she trailed off.

Winter grimaced. "What am I supposed to do, bring your suspicions to the General? You're convinced it was really the _White Fang_ who caused my... outburst." Her lip curled a little. "I'd sound like I was trying to pin the blame on _other faunus,_ it doesn't take a genius to see how that would go."

"Are you?" Neptune asked coldly.

Winter raised an eyebrow. "I personally have no _idea_ who might have orchestrated this," she said. "One of your classmates seems to think it involved an illusionist, but I haven't seen any proof of that. All I know for a _fact_ is that I saw him there."

"He wasn't," Weiss said. "I'm certain of that."

"Are you?"

"Yes!" Weiss huffed, looking annoyed. "He helped us fight them at the docks. And, honestly..." She glanced at Sun. "I can't even picture him joining. It doesn't work."

"Uh, thanks?" Sun's tail flicked back and forth.

"You need discipline to join a terrorist cell," she joked, tossing him a smirk.

He rolled his eyes and swatted playfully at her arm. "Yeah, yeah. I still say it's more of a cult." Blake winced.

"So, wait." Jaune held up a finger. "Are... uh, are you letting us go?"

"I haven't decided yet." Winter looked them all up and down, her eyes narrowed. "Why are _you_ doing this, rather than reporting it?"

Blake glanced at Weiss, then said, "We'd get frozen out. I know more about them than most, and... I _need_ to know if they're a part of this. I have to see it for myself."

"We were going to ask Brine and Raspberry," Jaune added. "It's just that... I'm not sure what's going on with Raspberry but it seems like they already have way too much to deal with, and we couldn't bring one without the other."

Winter tapped her fingers against her hip, this time looking directly at Weiss. "And you want to try and fight them again? Even after..."

"I'm _not_ useless." Weiss folded her arms. "Besides, I... I don't think you did anything wrong. Not on purpose. I want to prove it."

Her expression softened a little. "I appreciate that." Then she touched her hip again. Cardin noticed that her saber was gone. "I'm not letting you go alone, but... I've been suspended."

Weiss' eyes widened. "What? But—" Then she stopped. Scowled. "Right. I suppose... if we don't have proof you were set up, that _does_ make sense."

"It's the right thing to do, if he really wasn't there," Winter admitted grudgingly. "I can still use my summons, and..." She made a face. "I suppose I can empathize with you wanting closure of your own."

"So... you'll help us?"

"Yes."

Weiss' face lit up. "That's great! I mean, um..."

"Okay, whatever." Neptune threw his hands up and turned to Sun. "If you don't care—which is _insane,_ by the way—then I don't care."

"More supervision definitely sounds like a good idea," Jaune agreed. "But, uh... we did run into a snag."

Weiss winced. "Right. We... aren't sure where to go. We need to get into the tunnels between Vale and Mountain Glenn, but we don't know where the entrance is."

"The tunnels were closed," Winter told them. "There shouldn't be any way in."

"But there has to be." Blake frowned, running a hand through her hair. "We saw them moving things onto the tracks, and there's _nothing_ in Mountain Glenn. The only way it makes sense is if they're planning on coming back to Vale."

"We can look, I suppose," Winter said, doubtful. "I know where they used to be."

She led the way onto the next airship. Cardin stared out over the city, frowning. This was completely insane. His team was completely insane, BRYN and RSPR were completely insane, _Beacon_ was completely insane, and it looked like the Haven students weren't much better. Not for the first time, he wondered just what the hell he'd gotten himself into.

Still, he wasn't some kind of wuss and he wasn't going to back out. He followed after Winter, along with the rest of their group of seven—not bad odds, even if one of them was unarmed and therefore probably mostly useless, and another was Jaune and counted as only about half a fighter. She lead them to a particularly decrepit building in a part of Vale that was shabby but not _nearly_ as rundown as Woodacre had been. The place was sealed off and locked up tight with several rusted padlocks, with no sign to indicate what it used to be.

They went inside anyway. It turned out Blake knew how to pick locks, and Cardin only stopped himself from asking where and why _exactly_ she'd learned how to do that because he knew Jaune would whine at him about it for _ages_ afterward. Still—if she'd never burglarized a human's house or shop, he'd eat his mace.

The inside was worse than the outside. Cardin realized with a start that, despite its old and abandoned appearance, its outer wall had been painted over. It must have been, because there was graffiti on the inside from floor to ceiling. Some was fresh, and there were indications of more hidden under coats of paint, like graffiti was put up and then painted over and then recreated again. Things like _Never Forget,_ and, _the Price of Greed_ were written huge and spiky in angry reds, inky blacks, and stark whites. Grimm colors.

There was a staircase set into the back wall, descending down under the earth. It got too dark for the humans among them to see, but Jaune had brought four flashlights that they shared amongst themselves. Another iron gate, locked again, and this time when she tried to open it Blake just shook her head and said that it was welded closed. Shrugging, Jaune swung at the chain and broke it in two clean hits. Further inside there was more of the graffiti, and it got... eerie. Hyper-realistic renditions of Creeps, Taijitu, and Deathstalkers were painted on the tiles. At the end of the staircase, where it turned into the first subway platform, an entire wall was taken up by one word, scrawled in an unusually messy way in eight-foot-tall capital letters— _HELP._

"I can see why they locked it up," Weiss said quietly. "This is just the sort of thing that would draw more Grimm."

"Why'd they do it, if it's only going to make things worse?" Neptune asked.

"Catharsis." Winter led the way further in, holding up one of the flashlights. "The people who painted these likely lost family to the fall of Mountain Glenn, or are survivors themselves. No one else will see them, and these paintings release feelings they might otherwise have bottled up. Net positive."

"Or dwelling on it like this only makes it worse," Blake added. "And the fact that the city buried the murals adds more fuel to the fire."

"Or that, yes. I've never approved of the way Vale handles the darkest parts of its history, but I suppose Atlas isn't much better."

Blake snorted. "No, it isn't."

"It's fucked up, whatever they did it for," Cardin said, kicking at a painted Creep with his boot and scuffing one of its legs. Jaune grabbed his shoulder and gave him a _look,_ to which he rolled his eyes.

The platform itself wasn't much to look at, if you ignored the Grimm on the walls. Dingy, oppressively dark even with the four flashlights, and full of bits of trash and cigarette butts that must be decades old. The only clear difference between it and any other subway was the fact that all four tunnels going in and out of the station had been bricked in with massive cinderblocks, nearly as wide as Cardin was tall. On those bricks, the graffiti artist or artists had painted a crowd of people, standing with their hands at their sides, their expressions solemn. Accusing.

Weiss looked around. "There's no way through, then?"

"There shouldn't be," Winter replied.

"Wait." Blake pointed into one corner, where the darkness was thickest. Sun followed where her finger was indicating and perked up. "I think there's something there."

They approached and found a hole in the wall. It was tiny, probably not more than three feet square, and covered over with a steel grate with bars thicker than his biceps. It was attached to the concrete with screws designed to be impossible to remove.

"Well, that's just great." Cardin folded his arms across his chest. "Why the hell would anyone bother?"

"There are some people with clearance to visit Mountain Glenn," Winter replied. "Historians and archaeologists, mostly. There must have been an actual door here that was sealed off after the most pressing academic questions were answered."

"Could we bust it open?" Sun asked.

"No." Winter paused. "Well, _yes,_ but we'd then be leaving an opening for Grimm to enter Vale, which is unacceptable."

"How about unscrewing the bars?" Weiss fidgeted a little. "I mean, I don't think I have enough control with my glyphs, but..."

Winter sighed. "I _could,_ yes."

"Will you?"

She thought about it for a minute, her eyes narrowed. "You really think this is connected with what happened at the Festival?"

"Yes."

"Fine, then."

That was all well and good for Weiss, who was small enough to ride around in a damn duffel bag, but Cardin couldn't even _crawl_ through the opening. He had to squirm on his stomach, with Jaune on the other side pulling on his arms and Blake grabbing his ankles and pushing him. When he finally slithered out into an even darker, _dingier_ tunnel, this one with more normal graffiti that probably predated the fall of Mountain Glenn, he was covered in grime and ready to kill something.

Then, once Winter had finished replacing the grate, they walked. For _hours._ He'd gone in expecting either a boring trip that ended quickly or a dangerous trip that took the whole day. He _hadn't_ thought it would be boring _and_ take forever.

"We have to be like halfway there by now," Neptune said, looking around in bafflement.

"Not quite," Blake replied. "The halfway point is around where that base we found was, and... we'd notice if we passed it."

"You might have mentioned that earlier," Winter gritted out.

The tunnel eventually curved so that they could only see about thirty feet ahead of them. It went back and forth, snakelike, which Winter explained was because it sometimes had to veer around natural cave formations like the ones that had opened up and doomed the citizens of Mountain Glenn who hid in these same tunnels.

That was why neither of the faunus saw it. No one heard it, either, because they had started talking so that none of them would go completely insane with boredom. Their warning finally came when Blake's head snapped all the way around, and then Weiss pointed her flashlight down the tunnel. A train came hurtling around the bend, nearly silent except for the clacking of the wheels. It was weird seeing a train and not hearing the iconic whistle.

In half a second it was almost on them. The others leapt out of the way, but Cardin didn't—if it were supposed to be there, it would have had a light on. Since it wasn't, it was probably the thing they were coming to stop, and it was going way too fast for them to board.

Cardin crouched down, set his feet, and held both arms out in front of him. His semblance locked him in place instants before the train hit. There was a crash, the shriek of metal, and the next thing he knew he was lying on his back, staring upwards at the underside of the train, with wind howling around him and the sound of the wheels on either side deafening him. Searing pain spread through his arms, from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers. Someone was shouting, or screaming, or maybe there was more than one person. It was hard to tell, he was still trying to process what he was seeing. Then the last car rolled over him, and he realized that he'd ended up in between the tracks.

"Cardin!"

He sat up, and someone grabbed his hand. They were moving a _lot_ faster than they had any right to, and he was dragged backwards for several feet, swearing at the top of his lungs as the pain his left arm doubled. Then he was in the air, and a moment later he was being pressed against the back of the train. Blake was next to him, throwing an arm out to keep him from falling off again, balancing with one foot on a narrow ledge and her hand clasped in one of Jaune's.

Sun pulled him by the collar onto the roof of the car where he collapsed bonelessly. Jaune laid a hand on his back, and he felt his aura returning in a languid wave. That, he realized, was the fastest it had _ever_ been fully depleted. The agony in his arms became a sharp pain, then a dull ache, and then vanished entirely.

"You're okay!" Jaune panted.

"Sorry to disappoint."

"I hate you _so_ much. Seriously. Who jumps in front of a train on purpose?!"

"It worked, didn't it?" He lifted his head and scowled at his leader. Jaune muttered irritably under his breath, then rested his hand on Cardin's shoulder. He blinked, startled.

"What's up with you, anyway? I'm fine."

"You jumped in front of a train and then disappeared under it," Weiss snapped. "It was a little _unsettling."_

He blinked a few times, then sat up. Looked around. Smirked. "What, were you idiots worried or something?"

Weiss kicked him in the shin, which was basically a yes.

"Aw, that's _adorable!"_ he continued, in mocking falsetto.

"Hate you," Jaune repeated. Blake scowled and threw his mace at his head. He caught it one-handed, satisfied that at least there weren't going to be any embarrassing waterworks.


	46. Covalent Bonds [7]

Team RSPR was ignoring the Vytal Tournament. Ren felt that was perfectly natural—they'd been eliminated, and like most of the other eliminated teams the only reason for them to return to the stands was to root for their friends. They were also ignoring the Vytal _Festival._ This was significantly less normal.

The fairgrounds were officially those tents and carts grouped around Beacon, and there were quite a few participants and spectators milling around there. At Pyrrha's request, they'd taken an airship to Vale and found that this was where the festival was happening for those who hadn't been able to buy tickets to the coliseum. There were vendors selling everything from food to clothing to replicas of some of the contestants' weapons—Sky bought a tiny Crescent Rose before anyone could stop him. Lanterns hung over the streets, people played instruments on almost every corner, and the air was permeated with ambient chatter and the occasional peal of laughter. It brought back fond memories of the same festival happening in Anima, with different specific traditions but the same welcoming atmosphere.

RSPR was shunning it. It was hard to do—they only really left the festivities behind when they disappeared into the industrial district near the docks, where skeletal factories and warehouses loomed over them and the air was thick with the smell of fish. Ren even thought that at one point they had passed the place where Weiss and Blake had encountered the White Fang and Torchwick for the first time. Not great memories, but Pyrrha wanted to be away from the crowds.

No one asked any questions until they stopped, partway down a dingy side-street, without a single other person in sight. "Are, um... is this okay?" Ruby gestured to their surroundings. "As a place to stop, I mean."

Pyrrha nodded. She'd shoved her hands under her arms as though she was cold, but there was sweat beading at her forehead. "This was a mistake. I can't control—"

"Careful," Ren murmured. "We don't know if we're being watched."

She looked down, flinching. "Of course."

Sky started pacing around them, scanning the street up and down. "I feel like I'd know if someone was here," he said, "but maybe it would be stupid to bet on that."

Ren though furiously, trying to come up with a solution. "Perhaps if we locked ourselves in the dorm—"

"No," Pyrrha said quickly. "No, I can't... outside is better." A cold front rippled out from her like a breath of November air. The afternoon was already crisp and Ren had to fight down a shiver.

"Is this about the match with Velvet?" Ruby asked—very tentatively, because they'd been trying to get an answer to that question since yesterday without any luck. This time, though, Pyrrha just sighed and sat down on the curb.

"Yes and no. I didn't... I don't feel like myself." She swallowed. "I'm not sure that feeling is going to go away."

Ruby was the first to sit next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Ren took her other side, letting his semblance shelter her. Sky collapsed next to him, keeping a little bit of distance from Pyrrha—he still flinched whenever he touched her by accident.

"I didn't think it would feel this _wrong,"_ Pyrrha murmured. "I knew the part that was _her_ would, but not..." she glanced around, but they all knew that meant nothing when there was an illusionist loose.

"It wasn't meant to be split up like that, I don't think." Ruby tightened the hug, her elbow brushing against Ren's shoulder. "I don't understand how they could do that."

"Someone had to."

Ruby pulled a face. "Maybe, but... it's still wrong. If that makes sense."

Pyrrha hummed agreement. She was staring off into space, now, her arms around her knees. "It felt good. When I started using them by accident, it felt good."

"We can help you practice," Sky suggested. "Learn to control them better."

She shook her head. "I worked with Goodwitch for a while yesterday, after the match. She wants me to come back again this afternoon, but... it wasn't to see what it could _do."_

"What do you mean?"

"It was more about seeing how long I could go without doing anything. I made frost during the match, and... I can't do things like that. Someone will notice. So it was hours of _control,_ of using just the tiniest bit of power, and that was almost _worse_ than nothing at all.

"I could sense what they could do, during the match." Pyrrha's voice turned strange, almost dreamy. "They would have let me fly. I could have torn apart the stadium."

Ren felt a chill. "They're dangerous," he agreed.

"Back before the fairy tale was a fairy tale, the Maidens must have been like gods."

It was such an un-Pyrrha-like statement that Ren physically recoiled. She snapped out of her reverie and looked down at the ground with a strange mix of shame and... something else. It reminded him a little bit of Nora in certain moods—that same fierce pride in what she was doing, the love of the fight, the wildness in her eyes—but it wasn't the same. Too serious, too arrogant, too _angry._

"What are you looking at?" she snapped. Then she squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm sorry..."

"It's okay." Ruby still hadn't let go of the hug. "'S not like it's your fault."

The silence began to stretch, and Sky cleared his throat. "I've been wondering... was Ozpin trying to stop your fight?" Ren and Ruby both turned to look at him, baffled. Then the pieces slid into place—the strange technical difficulties, the voice in the background...

"I think so. I shouldn't have gone."

"Probably not," Ren admitted, "but there was no harm done."

"There might have been." Pyrrha shivered. "I forgot that it was only a tournament, for a moment."

"The last thing that happened to _her_ was being killed. That might have left an impression that was then passed on to you."

"I wasn't _afraid."_ Pyrrha's voice had gone sharp, cold. "I just... I was _frustrated,_ because I should have been enjoying such a close match and I couldn't focus."

She extricated herself from the group, then, and stood up so that she could pace back and forth. It reminded Ren of seeing a caged lioness at the zoo, when he and Nora were younger. Back and forth, back and forth, knowing she should be master of this domain, but having barely enough space to stretch her legs.

"It's only a game," Ruby reminded her. "You could always ask Velvet for a rematch later, when you have a better handle on this stuff."

That only seemed to make her more agitated. "And if I'm not allowed to have friendly spars in case I hurt someone?"

"We can still spar," Ruby assured her, "since we already know about the... um, the thing. And Yang and Nora are _super_ tough, you wouldn't have to worry about being too rough by accident. So's Jaune, though he might not be able to hit back very well. 'Cause, y'know, he's getting better but it's still kind of a work in progress..."

"This really doesn't scare you?"

"Nope!" Ruby said, putting her hands on her hips. Ren just smiled, shaking his head.

Sky, though... "I'd be lying if I said it didn't," he admitted, "but I'm not going anywhere if that's what you're asking. And it's the p—um, the _thing_ that scares me, not you. You're my friend."

The pacing stopped. She stood in the road, facing off to the left, one foot poised for another step. Then, quietly, "And when Ozpin decides I need to be hidden in some vault somewhere, to protect this half of the power?"

"We're with you, whatever happens," Ruby insisted.

"No!" Pyrrha whirled around, her hands clenching into fists. "Because I'd need to _leave_ if that happened. I'd run away, go _anywhere but here,_ and _Brine wouldn't come with me!"_

There was a moment of horrified silence. All Ren could think about was that night with Nora, talking in near-whispers so that the others wouldn't hear. Two magnets, slowly but inexorably taking on different trajectories.

Ruby was the first to find her voice. "Pyrrha, I'm sure if we asked Yang and Nora would—"

 _"Stop it!"_ She threw out a hand, and fire billowed out from her palm, swirling around her in brilliant blue-white trails. It didn't go far, didn't threaten to burn them, but Ruby had to shield her face from the brightness of it. A wave of dry heat crashed over them, and when they looked again Pyrrha's eyes were blazing with that same wild intensity, lined in beautiful golden light in the shape of butterfly wings. There were still trails of flame in the air, tracing her movements, and Ren understood all of a sudden that she'd been right—people would have revered this power, worshipped its bearers like gods, because what _else_ could you do in the presence of something that shone so brightly even after it had been torn in two?

The moment ended with a sharp clatter when Sky's armored knees struck concrete. His face had gone blank with terror, his eyes wide with pupils contracted to mere pinpoints, his whole body shaking like a leaf. Pyrrha stepped back, the fire vanishing in a heartbeat to be replaced by a rush of freezing cold air and flurries of fine snowflakes. They settled in Ren's hair, on Ruby's shoulders, on the bits of trash littering the street.

"I—I didn't mean to—"

"It's okay!" Ruby said hurriedly, holding her hands out. "Nobody's hurt, and we know it wasn't on purpose."

"I need to go. I need to think for a minute."

"Pyrrha, don't—"

She was already running. Ren grabbed Ruby's shoulder when she tried to follow. "Don't chase her," he murmured. "Not yet. She's scared, and that's making the powers react, and that's making her _more_ afraid. It's a vicious cycle, and I don't know if she could break out of it if she accidentally hurt one of us."

"But..."

"We'll wait for her at the airship station," he promised. "Let her calm down before we talk to her. And you can send her a message, to tell her that we aren't upset with her and that she can come back whenever she feels ready."

Ruby nodded. "Okay. Yeah, that sounds good."

With that done, he knelt in front of Sky. His partner hardly even reacted except to jump in fright when he touched his forehead. Then Ren's semblance activated, and his ragged breathing eased. He blinked, twice, then wiped at the start of tears with his sleeve.

"Oh..." He groaned. "Okay... so that's what that feels like."

"What happened?" Ruby asked. "Your semblance?"

Sky nodded. "I'm kinda glad that happened _now,_ because if Shoulder is the one who took the other half..." he trailed off, leaving them to imagine what might have happened if he froze like that in a fight while someone _that powerful_ was trying to kill them.

"Well." Ruby sat down heavily on the curb. "I guess we might as well talk about this, since... if anyone was following us, there's no way they didn't see that."

"Crap," agreed Sky.

"I'm not sure how much we can really do." Ren ran a hand through his hair and winced when he touched the melting snowflakes. "As much as I hate to say it, Pyrrha was right—I can't run off into the wild without Nora."

"So we _bring Brine,"_ Ruby said, sounding annoyed. "Yang and Nora, at least."

"I'm not so sure. We can't just drag everyone we're close to into this, and everyone close to _them._ Eventually someone will leaks our whereabouts by accident."

"I'm not saying bring everyone," Ruby insisted. "Just us, and Yang and Nora."

"Uh..." Sky raised his hand. "Alternate option, we could refuse."

Ren frowned in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"Well... Ozpin says 'Hey, how about we hide you in the school's basement so that no one murders you for your magic powers.'" Sky dropped his voice a little to imitate the Headmaster, and his expression showed exactly what he thought of having to utter a sentence like that in complete seriousness. "Then we all say, 'Nah, we'd rather not.' What's he going to do, kidnap a world-famous tournament champion with godlike powers? People are going to notice she's missing _really quickly,_ and they're also definitely going to notice the _giant smoking crater_ where there used to be a _school."_

Ruby giggled at that. "And we thought it was gonna be Brine that blew up Beacon."

They returned to the airship docks in much higher spirits, though Ren still felt troubled. This wasn't the moment when the two magnets would diverge. Maybe that wouldn't happen for a long time, and maybe it never would—but it _could,_ and the possibility wasn't so easily ignored now that it had made itself known.

Just as they were about to sit down on one of the benches at the airfield, Sky stopped walking so abruptly that Ruby bumped into him. His head turned to the left, and Ren tried to see what he was looking at. Two Atlesian soldiers were heading for a nearby airship—one was probably female by their size. His partner's gaze was fixed unblinkingly on the taller one. There didn't seem to be anything strange about them, though—except, perhaps, that there was a little nick in the white plating over the smaller one's back, as though from an arrow or crossbow bolt. But that was hardly unusual for someone who wore armor.

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked, waving a hand in front of Sky's face. He turned around, his brow furrowed.

"I don't know," he said, frowning as though his mind was elsewhere. "Just... they felt dangerous."

"How dangerous?" Ruby asked, craning her neck to look. Ren scanned the crowd, too, but the two soldiers were gone.

He frowned. "It's... I'm not sure. I didn't get a good look. They were headed for the airship, though." All three of them exchanged pained looks. They _could_ board the ship and look for the two soldiers, find out if there really was something wrong with them or if it was just that Sky's semblance was still not back to normal after the incident earlier. But, if they did that and Pyrrha came back to the airfield...

"I'm staying," Ruby decided.

Ren nodded agreement. "We can always look for them when we get back."

Sky still looked uneasy, but he didn't argue—Pyrrha was more important.

* * *

It was only after Blake had grabbed Cardin—still alive and in possession of all of his extremities—that she registered their surroundings. Wind whipped over the back of the train, tugging at her hair, her scarf, the ribbon on Gambol Shroud. Her ears pinned back against her skull, and she had to squint through the grit and dirt being kicked up by their passage.

Sun raised his hand as if they were in class. "So, uh... why is there a train on a dead-end subway?" Everyone stared at him. He scratched at the back of his neck. "I mean, is it that obvious, or..."

"No," Blake replied, with a sinking feeling in her stomach. "It's definitely not." Could the Fang know that small entrance was there? How would they open it? Perhaps that was what the explosives were for, but _why?_ They could just as easily have gathered above ground, slipped into a base in the city and donned their masks.

"That's not our only problem," Weiss pointed out. "Just about everyone on this train probably _felt_ that."

"Oh, _sorry,"_ Cardin sneered. "Didn't mean to inconvenience everyone."

"They would have seen us anyway, but my _point_ is that they probably have _guards."_

As if on cue, there was a sharp bang and the door into the compartment they were standing on burst open. Blake leapt forward, slashing at the head that poked through.

She caught only a brief glimpse of the woman's mask, the two slight bulges in her hood. Then she shrieked, _"Traitors!"_ and launched herself at Blake. Her balance was good, but not _that_ good—the two of them lurched backwards towards the space between compartments, and her feet went out from under her.

Blake landed painfully on the edge of a barrier, then slid across to the next car. The woman who'd tackled her had a grip on her throat, which was irritating but not immediately life threatening. She could already tell that her opponent's aura wasn't unlocked, and gently pried her off and wrestled her down onto her knees.

"You would have died if that had worked," she said. The woman's hood had come loose, exposing her doe's ears. She didn't reply.

By then the others were coming across. Cardin snarled in the woman's face, "The hell are you doing here? Why the train?"

"If you would _step back,_ please," Winter snapped. Then she crouched in front of their captive, her face expressionless. "You were expecting to die today."

Blake flinched, even though she had been thinking the same thing. There had been no hesitation, and she had to believe that even Adam would have paused, if only for a split-second, to wonder if his life would be better spent elsewhere. The woman, realizing that this question had already been answered, nodded once.

"She's not going to give us anything useful," Winter decided. "Besides, we don't have much time."

"So... what do we do with her?" Sun asked. He gestured around. "It's not like we can tie her up in a janitor's closet like in the movies."

Neptune put a palm over his face. "You definitely would have tried that if we weren't on a train, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, _totally!"_

"Enough." Winter gestured for Blake to hand the woman over. She hesitated.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to put her down," Winter said, gesturing at the tracks behind them. "It's likely to be somewhat painful, but much less than being crushed under the cars would have been. She can't run fast enough to catch up."

Blake blinked a few times, startled. When she heard _put her down,_ she hadn't thought the explanation would end in something reasonably humane. The woman looked at the ground and said nothing. She balked a little when she was pushed towards the edge of the car, then set her jaw and leapt of her own accord. When she hit the ground she rolled, and eventually popped back to her feet looking unhurt. She was already dwindling into the distance—the train had picked up speed since Cardin had slowed it down for them to board.

"So... onward?" Jaune asked, pointing down the length of the train. Blake turned to look that way and tensed. Another of the compartments was opening, though it was nearly ten cars down. She recognized the mask that was emerging from inside.

"Oh, _him_ again," Weiss huffed, irritated.

 _"What?!"_ Winter stared at them in disbelief. "You do realize he killed nearly fifteen people during that hijacking? Most of them _trained soldiers?"_

"You get used to it," Jaune said with a sigh.

Before they could elaborate—which Blake considered a good thing, especially since she didn't want the only family member Weiss seemed to actually _like_ to decide that she was a dangerous influence—the Lieutenant stood up to his full height on the roof of the train. The tunnel roof was only barely high enough to accommodate him. He dragged something else from inside the compartment, not the chainsaw he'd been using when last they saw him. It looked more like...

"Get down!" Winter shouted, calling up a glyph in front of them as they threw themselves onto the floor of the train. The noise was deafening, and the hail of bullets tore through the barrier in less than a second.

Jaune heaved at the door into the compartment, his face reddening with exertion. "Cardin, help me!" Together they worked it open, and all seven of them threw themselves inside—though not before the Lieutenant adjusted his aim.

Then all was much quieter. The car they had hidden in was barren of furnishing, except for the ominous shape of a Dust bomb in the center. Blake stared at it suspiciously, but it wasn't active—she guessed they must be carrying them in separate cars to avoid a chain reaction if one of them should go off.

"Is everyone okay?" Jaune asked, his voice a little shaky. They could still hear occasional spurts of gunfire from above them, though it was muted now. Blake looked around, first at Weiss, then the rest of her team, Sun, and Neptune. Finally, she glanced at Winter. There was no blood, but part of her military jacket had been torn open and there was a bruise forming over her shoulder.

Weiss moved to touch it, then held back. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." Winter rolled the arm and grimaced. "It didn't break my aura."

"What _was_ that?" Sun asked, pointing upward. "I mean, _seriously!"_

As if in answer, Cardin bent down and picked up what looked like a bullet. It was sizzling, partly deformed by the impact it must have had against the door to the carriage, and almost the size of his fist—more of a cannonball than anything else. Violet Dust was inlaid along it in concentric rings, along with some bizarre lines of something else Blake didn't recognize.

 _"That,"_ Winter replied, "was military technology. It uses gravity Dust to accelerate projectiles to greater speeds than conventional burn Dust can manage. And, in more practical terms, it was a way to force us to move _through_ the train instead of over it."

"I'm all for not getting shot at by that again," Sun decided.

"What I want to know is where they got it," Weiss said, though she was still staring at the bruise on her sister's shoulder. It was starting to heal even as they talked, turning a magnificent shade of purple as it did so.

"I guess we still need to get to the front of the train?" Jaune looked as if there was very little he wanted to do _less._

Winter nodded. "Whatever it is they're doing, they need this thing to be moving." She approached the door. "I'll take the lead, the rest of you _stay behind me._ Understood?"

"But—"

"Weiss, _is that understood?"_ Reluctantly, she nodded. And with all of them behind her, Winter slid the car door open.

There, across the space between compartments, _he_ was standing, sword in hand. Blake stumbled back, struck at once by how familiar the image was. Him on one side, her on the other, with only the coupling of the cars connecting them. She knew he'd noticed, too—he didn't smile, but he nodded once. An acknowledgement of the irony, maybe, or a last goodbye. Then, Adam decoupled the cars.

Winter swore and tried to draw a line of glyphs, but he hadn't finished. He gestured to someone above him, and a massive SDC crate tipped off the end of the train and onto the tracks. Their car lurched as they collided with it, and all of them slammed into one another. One of Cardin's elbows landed in Blake's gut, and she cracked her head on Neptune's knee. Then, all was silent—except for a rapid, steady beeping, like a heart rate monitor going into a panic.

"The bomb!" she blurted out, struggling to her feet. Another glyph erupted into being—one that Blake only vaguely recognized from the attack on Sun. A familiar white Beowolf leapt out and threw itself against the side of the bomb, shoving it as far away from them as it would go.

"Weiss, help me." A line of glyphs appeared between them and the explosives. Weiss raised her hands, reinforcing the barrier. Jaune, apparently not knowing what else to do, held his shield up. The beeping stopped, and everything went white.

When Blake came back to herself, she was lying on her side with one arm under her, the other thrown over her head. She opened her eyes, blinking a few times to clear them of smoke and grit. The whole tunnel smelt of the unnatural tang of burn Dust, melted steel, and ash. Groggily, she got to her feet and looked around.

She found Jaune first. His shield was several feet behind him, not even _dented,_ and he himself also seemed unharmed. He was already struggling to sit up, looking around without focusing on anything. She wondered with a pang if something had happened to his eyesight but... no. The flashlights had all gone out, of _course_ he couldn't see. She wasn't even sure how _she_ could until she noticed a few leftover flecks of burn Dust, giving off faint red glimmers—just enough for her to make out general outlines.

Cardin was a little ways away from his partner. She hadn't been too worried about him—he _had_ just shown that he could jump in front of a train and get up afterwards—but the confirmation that he was alive enough to grumble curses under his breath was nice. Sun was lying across Neptune like a log, groaning and rubbing his head. He smelled like blood, but she was fairly sure that was all from a gash on his forehead that was nasty, but not life-threatening. Neptune, too, was unhurt.

Blake scanned the tunnel for a glimpse of Weiss, turning in two full circles. The longer she stood there, the more her thoughts devolved into meaningless static. Then, finally, she noticed a flash of white behind a crumpled piece of the train car and vaulted over it, scorching her hand on the hot metal. Weiss was curled up, one hand still gripping the hilt of her rapier. Blake knelt next to her and nudged her arm. She stirred, then blinked both eyes open. They matched when it was this dark—the good eye had dilated as much as the bad one.

"Who..."

"It's me."

"Oh." A pause. "Is it dark in here, or did I just lose the other eye?"

Blake choked out a startled laugh. "It's dark."

"Good."

That only left one person unaccounted for. Blake stood up, then peered over another scrap of wrecked train car. Her eyes met two bright red ones. She yelped and jerked backwards when the Grimm surged towards her on dozens of bony legs. Even as she moved, somewhere in the distance she heard the rumble of another explosion.

"Blake?" Weiss was standing, now, looking sightlessly around her. "What's going on?"

"Grimm!"

Someone swore—probably Cardin, if she were to guess.

"Where are the lights?" Jaune shouted. Then he cried out, "Not okay, _not okay!"_

More Grimm were emerging from what Blake now realized was an entirely different passageway that had been opened up by the explosion. Her mind flashed back to what Winter had said about the bends in the track moving around natural cave formations. She backed up to where Weiss was standing, slashed at the many-legged monster as she went.

"Blake?" Weiss held up her rapier. "I can't see the chamber, can you change it to red?"

"Not—" she grunted, catching a pair of mandibles on her sharpened sheath. "Not yet, just hang on!" She wasn't sure how much help she'd be, anyway—she could still see when it was this dark, but she couldn't make out colors.

"I got it!" Sun's voice called out. Blake spared him a glance and found that he was busy detaching a Creep that was trying unsuccessfully to chew on Jaune's foot. Did he _still_ have aura left?

Then Winter spoke, sharp and authoritative, and Blake finally found where she had ended up. She was sitting with her back to the cave wall, one leg stretched in front of her at an awkward angle. "Find Blake or Sun. Stay close to them until we can get some light."

"Over here!" Sun shouted. "I'm right here, come one come all, eyes for the sharing and _wow_ that's a disturbing mental image."

"Here," Blake added. "But Sun's closer to everyone except Weiss and Winter."

"Wait, where are you, Winter?" Weiss asked. She held up the blade of her rapier and infused it with Dust—it turned out to be gravity, and the dull purple glow probably barely lit up her own face, let alone her surroundings. _"Drat."_

"About twenty feet to your left," Winter replied, seeing the light.

There were more Grimm coming up on them now. Blake swallowed when she saw a Deathstalker skittering out into the tunnel, its many eyes drawn to the glowing blade in Weiss' hand.

"We need to go," she said. "Now."

"Yeah, uh..." Sun's voice cracked. "Definitely a good idea!"

"Wait, what?" Jaune kept looking around. "What's going on?"

Sun grabbed him and Neptune each by the wrist, guiding their hands onto his shoulders. "Cardin, just... move your hand like three feet to the left... a little more..." Cardin, groping blindly in the dark, grabbed a fistful of his tail. _"Ouch,_ okay, not what I was aiming for but _whatever."_

Blake guided Weiss over to where Winter was sitting, flinching when she realized that it was going to be a lot harder to get her out of here. She was trying to stand, but the one leg wouldn't support her weight. Blake crouched down next to her and let her throw one arm around her neck.

"What's taking so long?" Weiss asked, not even bothering to hide the worry in her voice. "Winter?"

"I'm fine," she gritted out. "Sprained ankle." It definitely _wasn't_ a sprained ankle, but now probably wasn't the time to call her out on the lie.

"Ugh, let me just..." Weiss stabbed her rapier into the ground. The concrete cracked and splintered, crushing itself into a ball. "I hardly ever need this for the blade, but _the one time_ it's the _worst_ thing for me to—" she cut herself off, twisting the hilt of her sword slowly and precisely, three times. This time when she pulled the trigger the blade glowed electric yellow, enough for the humans to see by.

They could pick up the pace now—or, rather, most of them could. Winter was limping badly, even with Blake supporting most of her weight, and the small group of Grimm was slowly but surely growing into a horde. A few were moving further down the tunnel, towards wherever the train had come from, but the vast majority were pouring through the subway towards Vale, and towards their little group. Deathstalkers, it turned out, were much faster than they were.

"We need to get out of this tunnel," Jaune said, glancing around as if there would be a trapdoor above their heads. Another explosion rattled the walls.

"Winter, can you summon—" Weiss started to say, but Winter shook her head. Jaune jogged over to them and put his hand on her shoulder. He glowed bright white for a few brief instants, casting searing shadows across the tunnel. Then the light cut off, and he slumped to the ground, panting.

"Get up." Cardin grabbed him by the hood and hauled him upright. He shook his head, apparently dizzy, then stumbled forward.

They kept ahead of the rest of the Grimm, though only barely. Cardin took over from Blake. He was taller than Winter which made him easier to lean on, and he was strong enough even with his aura exhausted to handle the extra weight on his shoulder. Before they could go much further, though, Sun skidded to a halt.

"Dude, what are you doing?!" Neptune demanded.

"Uh... there's more ahead of us."

He was right—most of them were moving away from them, but a few Creeps and one King Taijitu had turned and were advancing, cutting them off. There was another explosion, and as if a switch had been flipped the full extent of Adam's plan clarified itself. Bombs to blow holes in the subway walls, gather Grimm. And then... more, to open up the city of Vale? _Why?_

"We need to get past them," she found herself saying. "I think... I think we'll be able to get to the surface soon."

Winter stared at her. "How—" Then her eyes widened. "Ah."

"Huh?" Sun glanced around. "Am I missing something, or—"

"Run now," Weiss snapped, prodding him in the back. "Ask questions later."

When they came upon the second wave of Grimm pouring into the tunnel, Neptune and Sun took the lead—one going left, the other going right. Neptune jabbed at the Creeps with his trident, shocking them and driving them out of the way. Another of the many-legged Grimm hissed at him, trying to sink its jaws into his leg, but he just hopped backwards and zapped it just behind its head. On the other side, Sun was trying his best to deal with the King Taijitu. He couldn't force it back, so he was baiting it, letting it come within inches of sinking its fangs into him only to roll out of the way. Winter used her good leg to kick a loose stone into her hand and hurled it into the giant snake's eye.

The rest of them poured through the small gap that was left, with Blake, Jaune, and Weiss doing their best to dispatch any stray Grimm in their path before Cardin and Winter passed through. Now their lead was even narrower, with the faster Grimm snapping at their heels as they ran—but there was a glimmer of light in the distance. _Sunlight._

Blake wasn't sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, they would have died if she'd been wrong about the White Fang's plan. On the other... she could already hear screams and shouts coming from above.

They barely made it to the surface ahead of the horde. Weiss conjured up a stairway of barrier glyphs, with Cardin and Winter leading the way into open air. Blake followed with Jaune, but before Sun and Neptune could make it all the way up the glyphs splintered and gave way. The pair of them and Weiss had to climb up Gambol Shroud's ribbon, with Jaune and Cardin helping Blake haul their combined weight.

The second they were all through, Blake staggered back and looked around. They were in Vale, just like she'd thought. There was chaos all around, people running and shouting, but her eyes were drawn inexorably skyward. The Amity Coliseum was there, hovering over Beacon Academy—and it was billowing thick black smoke.

* * *

It felt weird being in the singles. Not because Yang wasn't enjoying it, or because she didn't think she could win—she was going to give the competition one hell of a fight. Maybe it was her own lack of a reaction that was making it seem so surreal. She had no idea what it was, but RSPR had something _big_ going on, something that had overshadowed the tournament entirely. If Weiss blowing off her first singles match was any indication, so did ABSW. That left BRYN as the only ones still competing, and it was just... _weird._

They'd been looking forward to this all year, but it had an atmosphere, now, one she didn't like. This match was case in point. Pluto was a favorite from Vacuo, a dark-skinned, dark-haired boy with a long black tail and a single pale green eye. The barest hint of a tattoo could be seen peeking out from under his shirt, outlined in white. The other, Ellan, was from Mistral, and wasn't trying to hide her disgust. In a way it was almost _more_ infuriating than the juvenile insults ERMN had thrown around, because she acted like she was too _above-it-all_ to even talk to him.

Anyway. At least Pluto was winning—he had better speed and agility, and Ellan seemed to have badly underestimated him at pretty much every turn. So that was fine—but the crowd was going _insane,_ so much so that it made her uncomfortable just being in the stands. Part of her was almost glad the others weren't here, because spectating the matches had gone from a fun day out to a grating chore almost overnight.

Things reached a boiling point when Pluto struck a final blow and drove his opponent into the red. The stands erupted—BRYN joined in the cheering, with Russel shouting so obnoxiously enthusiastically that the people nearest them leaned away from their group. Someone, she never figured out who, threw a punch, and the next thing she knew part of the stands was embroiled in a confusing brawl.

Well, calling it a brawl was a bit much. Yang had been in (and started) enough actual fights that this didn't register as much of anything. Mostly it was pairs of people screaming at each other and getting into shoving matches, which she deescalated mostly by picking up both offenders and holding them apart from one another. When it all finally died down, they were rolling the next contestants—probably in an attempt to distract the unruly crowd.

Of _course,_ one of those two people turned out to be her. She shot a parting grin to her team—Russel offered a mocking salute, Nora an enthusiastic reminder to definitely break a leg (But not actually, sorry Dove!), and their leader a nod and a smug, confident smirk.

Then Port called out, "Velvet Scarlatina!" and Yang's face lit up. She'd been looking forward to this match since she'd seen the fight with Pyrrha. Now with more spring in her step, she jogged down to the arena and faced her opponent, who nodded politely to her.

 _Probably bad timing,_ she thought, glancing up into the stands. Then she scowled, realizing that she was probably about to get a whole lot of cheers from people she would happily push off a jetty. Partly in an attempt to alleviate a bizarre, misplaced sense of guilt, and partly to piss off any and all of those people, she set her feet a ways apart and dipped into the most formal bow she knew—one her dad had taught her when he first started sparring with her, and which she had mostly ignored since. Velvet broke into a grin and bowed back, mirroring her stance.

Just like that, it was on. Before she even had time to react, Velvet was leading with a holographic projection of Pyrrha's lance. She considered that something of a gesture of respect in and of itself—that was how you'd start a match against someone you considered a really serious opponent. Grinning, she ducked under a few swings and deflected a jab off one gauntlet.

It took a moment of that back and forth before she thought she had settled into something like a rhythm. Sparring with Pyrrha was insanely difficult, but Velvet wasn't _quite_ at the same level of nightmarish technical skill.

Naturally, that was when Velvet started to switch things up. Her next weapon Yang didn't recognize—a pair of small sickles that she dual-wielded with almost as much finesse as she'd handled Pyrrha's lance, which was a _lot._ Again there was that adjustment period, where she tried to accommodate the change not just in weapon but in style. Before she could start to get comfortable with that, the sickles disappeared again.

In their place were swords—an _absurd_ amount of swords, floating over her shoulders like the stingers of a nine-tailed Deathstalker. Yang recognized them, since Ruby had grabbed her by the arm and pointed excitedly when her friend had first appeared. That did not, as it turned out, translate to dealing with them effectively.

She dashed to the left, rolling under a wave of hard light blades, then popped to her feet and jabbed at Velvet's chin. Another sword blocked her, and three more circled around her. They split off in different directions, and before she really knew what was going on she'd taken a nick on the calf. Not serious, but _geez._ A flicker of heat started in her chest, and she was sure that when she blinked next her eyes had gone red.

The crowd tittered, some cheering Velvet on and others heckling the pair of them in almost equal measure. Yang spared a second to point and wink at one man in the front row, not thirty feet away, who had jumped up on his seat and gone purple with rage. Velvet was nice enough not to capitalize on that.

Yang knew riling them up was probably a bad idea, but she just couldn't _help_ it. This whole thing was starting to feel like a complete shitshow—the angry mob masquerading as an audience had screwed up the whole tournament for ABSW, and then there was whatever the hell had happened to Pyrrha, which definitely wasn't _helped_ by people heckling her for losing to a faunus. Was it so wrong to want to poke the bear a little, especially if it kept people's anger focused on _her,_ and not classmates that didn't deserve it and probably didn't want to deal with it?

Not that it mattered, just now. She got back into the game, enough that she managed to roll past several of the swords and land a solid kick to the small of Velvet's back. She stumbled forward, but when Yang leapt to follow up the attack she found herself blocked by Pyrrha's shield. Then she was being shoved backwards, skidding on the arena floor, and trying to duck a pair of... shotgun nunchucks? _Somebody definitely shot themselves in the foot more than once learning to use those._

They were effective, though. A glancing blow to her shoulder spun her almost halfway around, and when she looked again Velvet had a minigun braced against her hip. She rolled out of the way, ducking under a hail of bullets and then leaping to her feet in time to launch a shot that hit Velvet's upper arm. Again the cheering and jeering rose a notch, and she grimaced. She couldn't help imagining the lot of them frothing at the mouth, screaming incoherently at people just for being a little different. That wasn't fair—some of them were cheering for Velvet, or for Yang as a person, or for Beacon Academy. Still.

A glance at the screen showed her that her aura was close to the yellow, now, and Velvet's only a few slivers behind. She grinned at that—close fights were always her favorites. Yang let her semblance flow out of her just in time to land a blow to her opponent's stomach, and in turn took a nasty scratch from a small hooked knife. Judging by the way Velvet tossed it away in disgust even as it vanished from existence, it wasn't one she'd borrowed from a teammate.

The noise of the crowd rose to a fever pitch as both of their auras drew closer to the red. Yang had briefly gained the advantage when she'd her semblance fuel her, but then Velvet had pulled out a sword almost as long as she was tall, and it had been harder to get in close from then on. Now they were neck in neck, and she'd forgotten about the nastiness of the match, the jeering of people who probably didn't even know her, and was wholly focused on the fight. It was exhilarating—she'd had close calls like this before, but she hadn't gotten to fight an unfamiliar opponent _this_ tough since she'd first sparred with Pyrrha. She let out a whoop when one sweep of the sword sent her flying head over heels, and another when she managed to turn it into a cartwheel that landed her on her feet.

Velvet smiled at that, but however amused she might have been she wasn't showing any mercy. The giant sword was swapped out for a whip _mid-swing,_ and it caught Yang right in the gut. The wind was knocked out of her, and she heard with almost perfect clarity a scream from the crowd—"Get up and _fight it!"_

She stood, shaking her head, trying to get back in the zone. Then, just as she was trying to duck a swing from Cardin's mace—that thing was _scary_ when the person holding it was faster than the average glacier—Velvet froze, ears twitching. Yang stopped, too, nonplussed.

"Uh, what—"

Then she heard it. A low rumbling, felt more in her breastbone than in her ears. Slowly but surely the noise grew louder, accompanied by a strange _grinding,_ like two huge rocks dragging over one another.

"Okay..." Yang chuckled nervously. "That's not good."

As if in answer, the arena floor lurched so violently that she and Velvet were both thrown off their feet. There was a sickening swooping sensation in her gut as the ground listed sideways, like she was suddenly lying on a slight incline. And another feeling, familiar but horribly out of place, like when you get in an elevator and it starts to descend. One look at Velvet's expression confirmed what she already knew—they had started to fall.


	47. Covalent Bonds [8]

Dove was already standing when the stadium lurched, which meant that he fell forward and would have tipped into the next row if Nora hadn't grabbed the back of his shirt. The world tilted crazily, and vertigo rose up in him so powerfully that for a moment it was all he could do to keep still.

"We gotta go!" Nora had to shout over the uproar of the panicking crowd. "We gotta get into the arena!"

He processed the request, decided she had a point, and then immediately realized that he already knew _how_ she wanted to accomplish that and did _not_ like it. Still... "I guess we jump," he said with a sigh. Russel whooped and, without any further encouragement, threw himself bodily towards where Yang and Velvet were. Easy enough for _him,_ he could _float._

Dove hit the ground much more heavily than Russel, then tipped into a roll and came up on his feet, wincing as he skidded a few inches on the tilted floor. "Yang!" Nora called out, waving both hands over her head. There were others approaching, too—Velvet's teammates.

"Are you two okay?" Coco asked, the second they all converged in the center of the stadium. Dove had trouble hearing her—it was like they were in the eye of a hurricane, a calm spot in the center of a screaming, thrashing mass of people. The entrances were all packed, with people shoving and kicking one another to escape.

"Yeah," Yang replied. She was distracted, watching the crowd. Velvet just nodded.

"We're going down," Coco said—flat, matter-of-fact. "These morons are going to get themselves killed if they keep fighting over the doorways like that. Brine, you go that way." She gestured towards the eastern exit, the one that was further from the airships, and thus much less crowded. "We'll take the madhouse."

"Got it!" Nora saluted, and off they went. There was an upward incline where there used to be flat space, making their job that much harder.

There weren't nearly as many people at the back exit as the front. All of them were the ones who had thought twice and realized that they'd have a better shot at getting out if they went the way no one else was—but there were quite a few people who'd had that idea. It wasn't as ugly as where CFVY were, but it was close.

"Break it up!" Dove bellowed. "None of you are going to get out if you plug up the doorway."

Someone threw a punch at him, which startled him so badly he nearly tripped on the incline. "Look, I know you're scared but you'll be able to leave faster if—"

"Uh, Dove?" Nora gave him an apologetic look. "I don't think logic is the way to go here."

"That's—" he paused. "Fair point."

In the end they played a twisted version of good cop, bad cop. Yang flared her semblance and shouted at people, forcing them roughly back whenever they tried to cut the newly forming line. Russel did the same, though his intimidation factor was somewhat weaker considering he wasn't on fire. Dove and Nora played the nice, reasonable ones that really just wanted to get them out of there as quickly as possible, and went around doing their best to calm down the ones nearer the back, telling them that it was okay, and none of the four of them were going anywhere until _everyone_ was out of the building, that sort of thing.

It was weird, mostly because he got the sense that Yang would have been way better at providing comfort than he was—but, then again, they weren't going off actual personality, here. These people were too scared to think rationally, or to look past the surface appearance of the red-eyed girl trailing flames.

The people they were herding out weren't just civilians, either. Dove recognized a couple of classmates he knew only by face, a member of ERMN, and a woman who looked so powerfully similar to one of their past opponents that he thought she must be the boy's mother. Then, about a minute later, he recognized a girl he'd seen with RSPR more than once.

"I can help!" she said, the second she was in range.

Dove blinked, a bit startled. "Ah. Good."

The girl— _Penny, right?_ —didn't fit into their whole good Hunter, bad Hunter dynamic. She was way too nice to shout at people, but she was also slightly _off_ in a way that was hard to describe but not particularly comforting. Instead she played what he dubbed the human wall. She stood a ways away from the doorway, breaking up fights simply by interposing herself between two people and ignoring anything and everything they did in retaliation. Someone kicked her in the shin? No reaction. A shove? The person doing the pushing stumbled back with a yelp. One woman tossing a drink at her? A vaguely hurt expression, like a puppy that had been scolded.

Finally the crowd lessened to a trickle, and the five of them could stop and breathe. Yang slumped into a sitting position, brushing her hair out of her face and letting her head tip back. She must still be tired from her match. _Bad timing._

"It doesn't feel like we're falling anymore," Russel said hopefully.

"We are losing altitude at approximately four point five meters per second," Penny told him. All four of them stared at her. She turned a little bit... _green?_

Dove shook his head and sighed. "At least we aren't falling any _faster."_

Russel scowled. "If _I_ said that, you'd be giving me _so_ much crap right now—"

The ground lurched, and the slight incline grew almost twice as steep. Yang tipped over sideways, and Nora slid right out the door. Penny didn't even _budge._ No one slid off the edge, at least not on this side of the stadium, but some of the civilians had been knocked to the ground. Before any of them could react there was a loud crackling noise, like television static, and the screens that had been broadcasting the match flickered back to life.

There was no audio. No context given. Just a crisp black-and-white image, like that of a security camera, showing a pair of Atlesian soldiers sneaking into a room with a bomb. Dove's jaw dropped.

The footage cut to inside the room, where there were rows upon rows of stacked cylinders, each emblazoned with the symbol for gravity Dust. _The engine room. It has to be!_ One of the soldiers—it was impossible to tell their gender under all the armor—put down their end of the bomb. The other—almost definitely female from her build—tilted her visor briefly towards the door before doing the same. Both left. Seconds later the screen went white, then black.

"What..." Russel gestured frantically at the screen. "What the _fuck?!"_

The crowd had stopped pushing momentarily to watch, but as soon as Russel spoke it broke the spell. They erupted, screaming at one another so loudly that Dove almost didn't catch the distant rumble. He heard the next one, though—closer. He shoved through the open doorway and skidded to a halt at the edge of Amity coliseum, staring down into Vale proper. There were two huge plumes of smoke rising, and even as he watched there was a long, rumbling _boom,_ and another billowed up from a spot just below the arena. Each of the three sites were in a straight line, and he had the sinking suspicion that there was a fourth one coming.

"We're under attack!" someone shrieked. "Atlas is invading!"

"Whoa, wait, hold on!" Yang was trying to be peacekeeper, holding both of her hands up. "We don't know what happened or who made that video, everyone just—" Someone jeered loudly enough that they were heard above the rest of the crowd, and her head snapped around. "Hey! I'm on your side, okay? I just want to make sure as many people as possible get to the shuttle safely. Speaking of which, let's—"

She was cut off when the screens flickered to life _again,_ this time showing one of the massive craters in Vale's streets. Yang was shouted down, and could only turn to watch as Grimm crested over the edge of the hole like a wave, red-eyed and snarling. And amongst them, a single figure. He was big in the way that Cardin and Yatsuhashi were, at least six and a half feet tall and built of solid muscle. His face was covered by a Grimm mask so ornate that it was really more of a helmet, obscuring his eyes completely. He didn't seem to realize that he was being recorded. Even as the video rolled, he turned and stalked further into the city, pausing only to bisect a Creep that had tried to bite him with one lazy swing of his chainsaw.

This time, the crowd lost it. Nothing any of them did stopped the shoving, and little fights kept breaking out. People had remembered where Penny was from and were targeting her with more jeering, and a few even threw cans at her. She didn't seem to mind. Other than dodging the projectiles, and once catching one that might have hit someone behind her, she didn't even look at where they were coming from. Instead she stared at the screens with her head cocked to the side, like she was trying to make sense of them.

The shouting peaked, and Dove's patience snapped. _"Everybody, shut the hell up!"_ he roared, the sound ripping out of him and leaving his throat raw. He pointed to the left. "If your last name starts with anything from A to M, go that way." Then to the right. "Everyone else, that way."

"Ignore the screens," Yang added. "Whoever did this, it isn't important right now—we're still going down, and we need all of you back on the ground as quickly as possible."

People started to move, though they were still muttering angrily amongst themselves. "Nice one," Russel said, raising his hand for a high-five. Dove left him hanging.

"Russel, Penny, you two stay with me. We're going left. Yang, Nora, you two go right. Break up fights if you can, but keep people moving."

"You got it!" Nora declared, snapping off another salute and diving into the crowd just in time to scoop up a little kid that had fallen over. She set him on her shoulders and pointed towards the shuttles, shouting encouragement.

"Not to alarm you," Penny said quietly, "But we are now falling at eleven point six meters per second, and by my estimation we will be hitting the ground in approximately two minutes and forty seconds."

Dove really wanted to shake her by the shoulders and demand where any of that had come from, but considering the circumstances... "We better hurry up, then." She gave him a pained look, but he hadn't misunderstood—that was almost definitely not enough time to get everyone to the ground. They'd just have to do what they could.

There was a third lurch, one that he felt in the pit of his stomach. Somewhere in the coliseum, something gave. He heard a crunching, a wrenching, and all of a sudden the tilt reversed, and he was slipping and sliding with nothing to hold on to. His feet hit the wall of the stadium hard enough to knock out a bit of his aura, and then Penny slammed into him. Her elbow caught him in the gut, and for the next few seconds all he could think about was _air,_ he needed _air!_

"Forty meters per second and now accelerating at nine point eight meters per second per second," Penny reported, even as she was clambering off him. Dove croaked something even _he_ didn't understand and then flopped onto his stomach.

"Dove!" Russel prodded him with his foot. "Dove! I don't know what to do and people are freaking out! Get up!"

He hauled himself upright and took in their surroundings. There were more Hunters, he could see them now—Oobleck was standing about thirty feet away, but he was dealing with a much larger chunk of the crowd that was waiting for the shuttles. One of them docked, and even without Penny's borderline supernatural gift with numbers he could tell that it would be the last one. He looked away, not wanting to see the crowd's reaction. He could guess well enough—if you want to bring out the worst in people, throw them in a big group and make them compete for safety.

His mind raced, groping for possible solutions, but he was coming up empty. If nothing else, he didn't have to worry about Russel. Just Yang, Nora, Penny, all the civilians, himself, and RSPR and ABSW if they were even _here._ But Russel would be fine.

"When we're about to hit the ground, jump," he said. "That's all I've got at the moment."

"I knew that already!" Russel burst out.

"I'm aware!" He bit his lip, trying not to meet the eyes of anyone around him. _Think, damn it!_

"Everyone lie flat on the ground. It's what you're supposed to do if you're in a falling elevator. Distributes the force more evenly."

 _"Does this look like an elevator to you?!"_ He wasn't sure who said it—maybe Russel, if his voice had cracked rather spectacularly, maybe one of the civilians. They were doing what he suggested anyway. He followed his own orders and lay down on his stomach, putting both arms over his head. At the last second, he twisted to look up at Russel, who was inexplicably _still there._

"What are you doing? Jump!"

Russel hesitated for half a second, then did as he was told. It looked incredible—Dove knew intellectually that he was probably moving upward at around the same speed he normally did now that gravity and momentum had barely any hold on him, but it _looked_ like he'd just up and flown into the sky at the speed of an airship.

Then, impact.

It wasn't the ground. There was another lurch, and for a second he felt as though he weighed a thousand pounds. Then the tilt reversed direction again, and he and Penny were hurled into open air. She grabbed his hand and threw out several of her swords in an attempt to anchor them, but they were already too far down. Dove did his best to aim his legs at the ground and concentrated every fiber of his being on keeping his aura up.

He hit the concrete at an angle, flopped sideways, cracked his skull on pavement, and then rolled several feet. Above him was the sky, half blotted out by the looming coliseum and, underneath it, the CCT. It was tilted at a crazy angle, leaning over. He blinked, and suddenly it was obscuring all his vision, looming, and Penny was crouching over him.

The next instant, all was eerily silent in the shadow of the fallen tower. Penny was still kneeling over him, blocking the debris. A foot of rebar was protruding from her chest, just up and to the right of her heart. Dove stared, wide eyed, tears already blurring the scene, bile rising in his throat—

"Do not be alarmed!"

He screamed—full-on, horror movie style shriek. Penny winced.

"I am still functioning at acceptable levels," she tried. He gaped at her for a second, then stared at the wound. There was no blood, just... sparks. Her right arm had gone limp, but otherwise she seemed perfectly fine.

"But... but..."

"Would you mind moving out from under the rubble? Holding this much weight is energy-intensive."

If he'd had _literally any other team,_ Dove would have lain there for another half an hour, staring and making confused, incoherent noises. Instead, his brain did something it usually only had to do when confronted with something Nora casually slipped into conversation—it just sort of... blanked out. This was happening, and quite frankly he didn't think the reason _why_ was something he was capable of comprehending right now, so he stopped trying.

Dove obediently rolled out from under the rubble, staggering when he put weight on one foot. It had taken the brunt of the fall, and while he _could_ walk on it—aura was a wonderful thing—his heel was throbbing painfully. He stopped, crouching down to peer at Penny. "Can you get out alright?"

She frowned, looking at the rebar _sticking out of her chest_ like it was a mild inconvenience, in the same category as getting a sleeve caught on the handle of a door. "Um... I may need some assistance."

He lifted his head, taking in for the first time the rubble around them. Then, he heard a snarl. Slowly, he turned around and stared into the red eyes of a Beowolf.

Dove breathed out. Pale mist spilled from his mouth, right into the monster's face. It yipped and lurched backwards, shaking its head like a dog. Its movements grew slow, sluggish. He swung his sword through its neck and the dark flesh parted without resistance.

"Russel!" he shouted. "Nora! Yang!"

No answer. Not surprising—the latter two had been on the other side of the stadium, and Russel might not have landed yet. Dove stood his ground, sword held high, and kept calling.

* * *

People were panicking, dashing around, moving so quickly that Cardin couldn't tell who was going where. It was chaos, as if the Grimm had already invaded the city—but they wouldn't, not for a few more seconds. The civilians weren't just running, they were running _away_ from something.

Then, he saw it. A group of adults were fleeing from a pair Atlesian soldiers, while some others were launching themselves at the white-clad figures, throwing bricks and stones. A soldier with a cracked visor had retreated into an alleyway, cringing away from a gray-haired woman swinging a trash-can lid like a baseball bat. Another, this one probably male by his size, had his gun out and was gesturing frantically at several civilians with makeshift clubs to back away.

"What the _hell?!"_ Winter hissed. She started moving towards the nearest soldier, the one pointing the gun, practically dragging Cardin along as her support, and snapped, "Stand down!"

He whirled around, then lowered the weapon. "Specialist Schnee! They've all gone mad, I don't—"

A decorative snow globe bounced off the back of the soldier's helmet, thrown by what looked like a civilian from Vacuo. "Murderers!" the man shouted, stooping down to scoop up the nearest object he could find, a plastic replica of Pyrrha's shield, and hurling that, too. The soldier swore and brandished his gun.

"Stop that," Winter ordered. "Explain yourself!"

"Winter?" Weiss said, her voice shaking a little. She pointed upwards, towards a nearby screen that _should_ have been broadcasting footage of the Vytal Festival. Instead, it was playing a video of two Atlesian soldiers. They were carrying a bomb between them, not dissimilar to the ones the White Fang had been using, but not identical either. Cardin didn't know much about Dust applications, but even he could recognize where they were just by the amount of gravity Dust—there was only one flight-capable object _that_ size in the world. When the video cut off it launched into another short video, this one of the big faunus from the train walking into Vale. Then the soldiers again, the two videos playing on loop.

There was a piercing metallic shriek from above them, and the smoking coliseum's slow descent turned into a dizzying plummet. The seven of them watched wide-eyed and horrorstruck as it listed to the side and then slammed into the CCT, spun partway around, and came to a halt with a sickening crunch. Jaune swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"You—name." Winter snapped her fingers at the soldier.

He jerked to attention and said, "Lieutenant Shale, ma'am." Cardin snickered, feeling a little better already. Maybe everything was going to hell, but he was going to do that salute at Weiss at least six or seven times before he got bored of it. Assuming neither of them died first.

"Find the General, tell him..." Winter paused, then scowled. "He already knows there's been a breach, but tell him the White Fang used a train full of explosives to make it happen. Round up as many others as you can on the way, keep an eye out for the White Fang, and I can't _believe_ I need to say this out loud but do _not,_ under _any circumstances,_ point a gun at a civilian."

"I wasn't going to..." The soldier trailed off, seeing Winter's expression, and wisely decided to flee towards his comrade with the broken visor. They had been backed into a corner, and were even now weathering a series of kicks to their shins without so much as a grunt.

"What are _we_ going to do?" Weiss asked expectantly.

Winter made a face, her hand moving to her hip. "Slate!" she barked. "Change of plans. Give me that gun."

So that was it—seven people, six of them teenagers, all trying to plug up a giant hole that was pouring Grimm. Things started to slide—at first only a few of the monsters would make it past them, but then they had to turn and deal with those and even _more_ slipped through. Soon they were forced away from the lip of the crater and into the street, and once they no longer had the high ground it was harder going. Almost all of them were running on a bare trickle of aura. A gentle rain began to fall, more mist than anything else, mingling with the sweat beading on their foreheads.

Cardin shoved his mace into the mouth of a Creep and set off the Dust charge on the end of it, splattering ichor everywhere. To his left, Jaune grappled with one of the eerie centipede-looking things—they were every bit as horrifying as the tiny bugs that liked to hang out in the dorm shower.

It wasn't working. There were more pouring into the city every second, and in the end there were only seven people opposing them. Everyone was too exhausted to spread out much. Partners were right next to each other, with Winter leaning on Cardin's shoulder, and no one was more than ten feet from their nearest neighbor. All together they weren't covering more than a dozen yards. Grimm were still getting into the city, and some were curving back around to try and surround them.

"We need— _hah!_ —need to plug it up somehow," Jaune said, grunting when a particularly large Creep leaned its full weight on his shield. Winter shot it behind the head, and he shoved the carcass away from himself. It made a natural barrier when it landed, giving them a moment to breathe.

"We can't," Winter snapped. She tested her ankle, taking a tentative step away from Cardin. It held. "The main problem is the rubble, anyway. It's giving them a ramp to climb out."

"But—"

"No." She conjured a barrier, blocking a King Tajitu from coming around the side of their group. "We need to fall back."

"And let the Grimm into the city?!" Blake said, incredulous.

"They're _already_ in the city. This part of Vale is overrun, and until we have Glynda or someone else who can block these holes, all we're doing is trying to stop a river with a few sandbags." Winter shook her head. "Come on. We'll be more useful finding an existing defensive perimeter and shoring it up."

"Yes ma'am Specialist Schnee ma'am!" Cardin barked, standing to exaggerated attention. Weiss put a palm to her face and muttered a few death threats through her teeth.

* * *

Ruby's patience wore thinner and thinner as time went on. Sky could see it in the way she was fidgeting. Then the bombs started going off, and it snapped like a rubber band. Everything and everyone erupted into chaos all at once—there were people running, distant gunshots, and a series of thundering noises that were followed by plumes of smoke.

"It's happening!" Ruby burst out, pointing. "The plan, whatever. It's happening! We need to find her, like, _now."_

No one argued with her. The three of them sprinted towards where they'd seen her last, shouting her name. Sky skidded around a corner and almost crashed into a man in a Grimm mask. He yelped, drew his halberd, and deflected the head of what looked like a spear or glaive. The next swipe he ducked. Then he followed up with a boot to the man's stomach. He keeled over with a groan.

"Pyrrha!" Ruby cupped her hands around her mouth. There was no response, except... Sky glanced up, realizing that there was a stain on the clouds, darkening them from steely grey to slate. Gusts of wind scattered the empty popcorn boxes and ticket stubs and paper ribbons the Vytal Festival had left in its wake. There was no rain yet, but he could smell it coming.

"This way!" Sky tried his best to figure out what part of Vale would be directly below that dark spot, shouting with the others as they went.

Pyrrha rounded a corner with her javelin and shield both in hand, her eyes shimmering in a cold, alien sort of way. Ruby collided with her mid-sprint—there were a few ways you could tell she and Yang were siblings, and their hugs were definitely one of them.

"What's going on?" Pyrrha asked, staring up at the smoking coliseum. "I heard the noise..."

"We don't know. One of the White Fang was there." Ren pointed back the way they'd come.

"It's probably not something they decided to do on their own," Sky said. "We're not that lucky."

Pyrrha clenched a fist, and little fractal webs of frost formed around her feet. She didn't seem to notice. "I'm not sure if we should help the civilians, or try to find the people pulling the strings."

No one had the chance to answer her. Sky felt a prickle on the back of his neck and turned around. His eyes went huge—the coliseum was falling. Even from this distance he could see the trail of smoke it was making, the sickening angle it was tilted at. It dipped, slowly at first and then faster and faster. A moment later it crashed into the CCT, making the whole thing crumple like tinfoil and topple over. Before he had managed to wrap his head around it, Ruby and Ren were both fumbling for their scrolls.

She got hers out first. "Yang? Yang?" There was a click, a shrill _beep,_ then nothing. No service.

RSPR didn't get much farther after that—just a few blocks, give or take—before they were stopped. Ozpin strode out into the street in front of them, his cane tapping at the ground. Sky was used to him in Beacon, playing the calm and unruffled headmaster. Seeing him panicked and disheveled in Vale was a shock.

"Miss Nikos, you need to come with me."

Pyrrha stepped back. "What? Why?"

"Something has been set into motion—"

"We can help!" Ruby insisted. "Really!"

Ozpin's expression darkened a little, and he wouldn't look any of them right in the face. "I'm afraid this isn't simple mayhem. It's a distraction—and I believe the perpetrator is here for you."

"Not me. _It."_

He looked pained, but didn't disagree.

Sky exchanged a wide-eyed look with Ren. "But..." he trailed off, searching for words and finding none. Then, he rallied. "But if she's looking for the other half of the power, how does she think she's going to get it?!" The question came out hysterical, mostly because he already knew the answer.

Ozpin stiffened. His brows drew together, and he looked more intensely at both Sky and Ren. "You told them." Pyrrha flushed, then nodded.

"This is meant to be _secret,"_ Ozpin half-shouted. His composure had cracked. "You were broadcast using the Maiden's powers on international television, and now they _know_ who they're looking for!"

"Sky already knew!" Ruby insisted.

"It's true, sir." He stared at the ground. "My semblance lets me sense danger. I almost fainted when I saw her the first time after..." He wasn't sure how exactly it had happened. Neither of his teammates had spoken about it, and he had the sense that they wouldn't want to start anytime soon.

Ozpin grimaced, then looked up at the sky. "This is my fault. I should have come to collect you right after the match."

"If you were that worried about her competing, why let her name come up?!" Sky noticed his voice was getting shrill, but he couldn't exactly help it.

"It shouldn't have been possible." The Headmaster glanced towards the smoke from the coliseum. "We removed her from the listings." He sighed. "I didn't want to separate you from your friends so soon, but—"

"Yeah, no." Ruby took a step closer to Pyrrha. "We're not going anywhere."

Ozpin blinked, then frowned. "Well, I'd expected one extra person..." Then his gaze tracked over the two boys. "Not three. This will be dangerous."

"With all due respect, Headmaster," Ren said quietly, "we've noticed."

"I've made a great many mistakes over my lifetime," Ozpin told them, his expression grave. "Over time I've gotten better at recognizing those moments where, no matter what path I choose, I will come to regret my decision."

Sky swallowed. He'd been feeling like that for a while now, like everything he did was leading him further into a trap. Since the whole Maiden thing, really. It wasn't reassuring to know he wasn't the only one.

"Very well. If you wish... you may come with us."

He didn't, not really, but he was sure he'd regret it more if he _didn't_ go.

They began to walk, not in the direction of the school but towards the docks. "Where are we going?" Ruby asked. She kept casting anxious glances towards the coliseum, no doubt thinking of her sister. They couldn't call to explain, but... well, what would they have told BRYN, anyway? _Sorry, can't wait up, Pyrrha's being hunted by an evil goddess!_

"I sent your uncle to find us a boat. He should be waiting."

"How did you find us?" Ren gestured at the city around them, as if to indicate the chaos.

Ozpin coughed, looking almost _embarrassed._ "Well, your scrolls are school-issue..."

"You _tracked_ us?!" Pyrrha burst out, her head whipping around. The glow started around her eyes again, and Sky had to look away. His semblance was buzzing along his spine. He felt like a bird, his head darting around and his whole body making small jerky motions.

"I've only used that feature twice this year. Once to find you, and once to locate Mister Lie when Glynda informed me that he and Mister Lark were in grave danger. It is for true _emergencies,_ not to be used unless there is a real and present threat to a student."

Pyrrha swallowed. Then she drew her scroll her scroll out of her pocket and tossed it gently into the air. It shot away from her like a bullet, stopping only when it smashed into the side of a building and rained down in a dozen smaller pieces. Sky jumped, but it hadn't been the Maiden powers—only her semblance. _Ha, only._

Sky frowned. Odd how his semblance had never picked up on Pyrrha before. Sure, she had been _less_ powerful before the Maiden thing, but still. He'd felt something around the silver-haired boy, and he... well. He'd been a threat, but obviously not an invulnerable one. Maybe it had something to do with intent? He tried to give it a prod, get it to read Ozpin, but as usual he didn't feel anything.

The Headmaster didn't comment about the smashed scroll, but he started treading carefully around Pyrrha. When he spoke to her he was respectful as always, just... cautious. Like anything he said might set her off. Sky was pretty sure that was doing more harm than good. Whatever _off-_ ness they'd noticed had only amplified now that he was present.

"Where are we going once we get to the boat?" Pyrrha asked, after they'd gone a few blocks. "You haven't explained the full plan. Are we hiding out somewhere until Beacon is back under control?"

"I can't be sure yet. Your pursuer will expect you on Sanus or Anima, so perhaps Solitas."

 _"Solitas?"_ Sky's jaw dropped. "Wait, but..."

"We are being _hunted,_ Mister Lark." Ozpin stopped for a moment to give him, Ren, and Ruby a serious look. "I need to be sure that the three of you know what you're getting into."

"I can't go to another continent without Nora," Ren said. "If we tell Brine where we're going..."

The look on the Headmaster's face was answer enough. "It's dangerous enough involving only a few of you. Your absence will be noticed, she'll start looking for other ways of finding you. The more people—"

"Then we're not going," Sky insisted. "None of us. Figure it out!"

Ozpin's jaw clenched, and for the first time his semblance registered something. Just a tingle, a hint of unease, but it was so completely _alien_ that he stepped back. This wasn't the kind of power Pyrrha had, the kind that burned bright and hot and scoured away those that threatened it. It was like the ocean, fathoms deep and bitter cold and patient enough to wear away a mountain.

The Headmaster slumped a little, and the feeling was gone. "I don't want to uproot any of you," he said softly. "I truly don't, but I don't have the power to protect you here anymore. Perhaps I could hold her off, but until you have more training—"

"I don't need to go to Solitas for training," Pyrrha snapped, "and I don't want to spend the rest of my life hiding."

"That is _not_ my intent. Right now we need to get away from her. As soon as everything is back under control... I can't be sure what will happen, but I will do everything in my power to return you to your friends."

 _"What_ power?" The wind picked up, and overhead the sky darkened.

Ozpin smiled sadly. "Unfortunately my strength is much diminished these days... but I have experience. More than any of you know. I've been fighting this shadow war for a long time, and I swear to you that you _will_ return here someday." His expression darkened. "One way or another, all this will be over within your lifetimes."

Sky shivered. He glanced around. Then, tentatively, "I could stay with Pyrrha. If we really need to split up, I don't have anyone I can't leave behind for a while. As long as you give my parents an excuse."

He didn't _want_ to, and he suspected that he was the last person on their team Pyrrha would want to spend weeks or months isolated with. His semblance kept reacting to her, and he knew she'd noticed that he couldn't so much as brush against her shoulder by accident without it acting up. But... maybe he was better than nothing.

"I'd have to tell Yang _something,"_ Ruby said. She looked on the verge of tears. "But... I mean... I can't just sit around here when you're..."

Ren's shoulders stiffened, but he didn't say anything. Ruby could maybe stay away from Yang for a few months. It would be painful for the both of them, but they'd survive. He and Nora were a pair. Simple as that.

"I don't want to hide," Pyrrha insisted.

Ozpin's brow furrowed. "Miss Nikos—"

"I know how that would go!" The air crackled and grew thick with the smell of ozone. "This _thing_ isn't going to stay quiet! I'm going to keep making mistakes, letting it slip at the wrong moment, and we're going to have to keep moving from place to place, never staying long enough to make _acquaintances,_ let alone—" she cut off suddenly, her eyes going wide.

"Ah." His brows furrowed. "I see."

"See _what?"_ She took a few steps back.

"Amber inherited her abilities at a rather young age. It was... unfortunate, but she didn't have much opportunity for a normal life before—"

"Stop it!" Pyrrha was backing up more quickly now, and heat rolled off her in scorching waves. Sky started to sweat, but he shivered anyway. Ozpin shut up. He seemed to be trying to come off as unthreatening as possible, but he still had that air about him—like he was treading carefully, measuring every response.

"I'm not going to hide from her. I can't. This... I can't stand feeling like this for months, just waiting. At least this way it ends."

"Pyrrha!" Ruby sensed what she was going to do before anyone else. She scattered, rushing after her partner as she bolted. Then a blast of wind roared down the street they were standing on. Sky was lifted off his feet like a leaf, crashing into a lamppost and landing in a groaning heap on the ground. When he sat up, Ren was a few feet in front of him, holding onto a doorway, and Ruby and Ozpin were both almost a block behind them. Pyrrha was nowhere to be seen.

Ruby vanished in another cloud of petals. They scattered about, hinting vaguely at the way she was rushing frantically around. Then she appeared again in front of them, bouncing on her heels and gripping her cloak in both hands. "What do we do?!"

Ozpin got to his feet and retrieved his cane from the ground. "She's upset," he said finally. "I doubt she'll be difficult to spot. It will be a matter of finding her before the enemy does."

"I'm not sure we should bring you with us." Ren's tone was mostly neutral, but there was a hint of accusation there, too.

"I don't want to force her into hiding," Ozpin said. It was more like a plea for them to understand, really, his eyes shining with desperation. "I never wanted Amber to grow up being hunted. But it won't be over when this other half-Maiden is defeated—it won't be over as long as anyone knows who she is. Others will come, as they always have. Power like that is dangerous."

"Then why did you _give_ it to her?!" Ruby demanded.

He looked her right in the eye. "Because it's more than just her under threat. More than just Beacon, or Vale. Everything and everyone is in danger, and we are badly outmatched by our enemy. We always have been. I can't stop them myself. I'm not wise enough to find a perfect solution, if such a thing exists. I can only buy what time I can, and look for a better way."

And just like that, the Headmaster was mortal. Sky glanced away, wishing that he'd just kept his mouth shut. It took away a layer of security. Maybe they were in danger, but at least they had a powerful Huntsman on their side—the youngest ever to be made Headmaster of one of the Academies. He was almost god-like himself. And now he was just a tired old man trying to do something impossible.

Sky looked around, scanning the clouds above for a disturbance like the one they'd followed earlier. They were dark now, almost black, and he felt his stomach turning over. Rain began to fall—it was barely a drizzle, but the droplets pricked at his face and hands until they were cold and clammy. This wasn't just Pyrrha—he was sure of that. Maybe part of it was natural, a downpour that would have fallen on one of the matches, on the food carts and games and the throngs of cheerful civilians milling about. Part of it was Pyrrha's fear and anger, bleeding out into the sky. But there was another set of fingerprints on it, an echo of something malevolent. Hungry.

He couldn't be sure how much of that was his semblance and how much he'd just imagined, but one thing was clear—there wasn't a scrap of him left that believed she wouldn't find them.


	48. Covalent Bonds [9]

It was like trying to hold back the tide with only her hands. Power bled out of her in bitter winds, in gorgeous fractal spirals of ice, in sudden blasts of fire that scorched the storefronts she passed.

Pyrrha crossed both arms over herself. It was so _exhausting_ keeping it reined in. She was hungry and cold and tired and so utterly lost she didn't think she could have found Ozpin again even if she'd wanted to, and she didn't. She suspected he was right—she needed to hide, she didn't have a chance throwing herself into this with no training and no control. It was just that she wasn't sure she cared anymore. The thought of a confrontation _now,_ even one that might end badly for her, seemed infinitely more appealing than months spent cowering. The hunger wouldn't go away, she knew that much. She'd be left stewing in it, huddling under blankets and drinking hot tea with chili powder in it like any of that would do _anything._

So she walked, head turning from side to side, not paying much attention to where she was going. _She_ was looking for her, and Pyrrha wasn't going to hide. She probably wasn't going to win, either, but she had to at least try.

A drop of water struck the side of her nose. More followed, pricking at her bare shoulders. It was light, barely more substantial than mist. She pulled, and it started coming down—in great, fat, freezing droplets. Her breath misted in the air.

There was a little scrape, as if from someone's boot slipping against the ground. Pyrrha froze. Could that be her?

"Who's there?" More frost spread around her feet, icing over one of the puddles she was standing in. She worried for a moment that her boot was stuck, but it lifted easily. Pyrrha moved towards where the noise had come from, a narrow alleyway leading from one street to another. It was half lost in shadow, half bathed in the glaring light of a nearby streetlamp. She stared into the darkness.

Pyrrha moved in further, the powers itching under her skin. "Are you the one that's looking for me?"

No answer.

"If you are, you may as well come out. I want this to be over with."

The back of her neck prickled. It wasn't memory that guided her, but an instinct that didn't belong to her—her senses were suspect. Anything and everything might be a lie, the street and the rain and the empty alleyway, all part of some trick. She hated tricks.

"Show yourself!" A wave of fire flew from one outstretched hand, spilling through the alley and onto the street beyond it. Someone leapt from a spot on the wall with a cry of pain. She was drenched in rain, now, shivering. When she lifted her head, Pyrrha saw the mask of the White Fang, one with a pair of horns attached. _Not her._ She wasn't sure if she was relieved or not—wouldn't it be better to just _face_ her, to stop holding it all in and let the Maiden's power run wild?

The girl on the ground pushed herself upright, snarling. It was hard to tell what she looked like—apart from the basic White Fang hood, she was wearing something wrapped around her mouth. All that was visible was the glimmer of light in her eyes. Grey eyes.

She drew a segmented whip. Pyrrha swallowed hard, then pointed towards the street behind her. "Leave."

The eyes narrowed and turned scarlet. "You're the champion. Tell me, are you always a sore loser, or just when it's one of us that beats you?"

"What?" Pyrrha stepped back, momentarily stunned. "Is this about the tournament match?" It was just so _strange_ —for one thing, she hadn't imagined the White Fang had time to watch the matches. For another... "That doesn't matter. None of it ever mattered."

The whip snapped out, and Pyrrha ducked under it. She didn't draw her weapons. Instead she held both arms out and tugged at the air. Wind picked up, swirling around the both of them. "I told you to _leave."_ Her voice sounded tinny and unreal. "I'm not looking for you."

Another crack of the whip, and this time it struck her across the face. Her head snapped around as her aura flared. Her hands were shaking, leaking pale mist as they turned bitingly cold. "It's all wrong now," she murmured. "Please, just go away."

For a moment, the woman stared at her. Then she took another step forward with murder in her eyes. "We're taking back this city," she declared. "This is the first step."

"You're _destroying_ this city." Pyrrha could hear it, the distant rumbling of the bombs having long since been replaced by howls and screams and the sound of buildings collapsing. She pulled again, and a dark grey-green stain spread through the clouds above her. Lightning flashed, accompanied in the same instant with blasts of thunder.

The woman shouted and charged her. She felt oddly-light-headed, and that in turn made her defense slow and sluggish. It hurt, but in a way it was bracing. Every hit grounded her, reminded her of her body while she felt she like she was floating away from it. The sky was roiling overhead. Was that all her, or was the other Maiden here somewhere, pushing the storm in the same way? She hoped so, which was almost more unsettling than the thought itself.

Finally, she had enough. She snapped both arms out, and this time she used her semblance. It was familiar, grounding in the same way that the pain was, but she wasn't holding back like she normally would. No barely-noticeable tugs. She ripped the whip away and flung it into the howling wind. It disappeared from sight, and even Pyrrha had no idea where it might have gone.

Those eyes had gone lemon yellow, now, wide with awe and fear. "What _are_ you?"

The dam she'd tried to build inside herself burst. Power overflowed, shining around her eyes and searing through her veins. She rose into the air, buffeted by the winds and slashed by rain. Then the raindrops froze and it was hail pelting her, pelting both of them, and the force of it ripped every bit of trash or debris from the ground and flung it into the sky. The woman was lifted bodily off the ground and flung into a wall so hard that bricks came loose and joined the maelstrom. There was fire in the air, now, whipping around her in a beautiful golden halo.

A scream brought her back to herself. The woman's hood had been ripped away from her, and her mask was askew. Brown hair flapped behind her, only barely constrained into a ponytail, and Pyrrha saw that her face was covered in darker spots, like freckles. Her eyes were grey again— _almost silver—_ and her mouth was gaping open. She took a few steps back, limping, cradling one arm to herself. Then she turned and bolted. Pyrrha raised a hand, electricity arcing between her fingertips. She wouldn't even have to push, just... let go.

Pyrrha held still for a few seconds, long enough that the woman glanced over her shoulder and saw. She shrieked and dived behind a building just before the lighting blasted towards her. It hit a shop front instead, charring it black and sending shards of brick flying in every direction.

Then she stopped, breathing hard. The woman was gone by the time she thought to check. She was glad for that. Finally she collapsed, curling up with her arms around her knees and shivering as the rain beat down.

 _I can't do this._ She was shaking, her heart pounding. Even the air around her felt hostile, like she was being watched by invisible eyes. Each second beat in time with the steady thrum in the back of her mind, repeating _she's coming, she's coming,_ over and over. In her head she had pictured a duel, like hundreds of others in dozens of arenas over her lifetime. She had imagined the moments leading up to be the worst, the fear and anxiety building to a fever pitch—and then, once she faced her opponent, falling away as she focused on the task at hand. But if _Pyrrha_ could hurl lightning without even _meaning_ to, what about someone who had practiced? Trained for this moment? The woman hunting her had stepped out of the abstract, and now she could hardly breathe.

She might lose, and she didn't want to die. And yet, even if she won... how much better would that be? The wide grey eyes popped into her head again, showing the whites in them as they rolled with terror.

_What are you?_

Pyrrha wasn't even sure she was entirely human anymore. Sparks jumped from her fingertips, and for a second she could see herself as the White Fang woman had—red hair whipping around her face, golden fire pouring from her eyes, suspended in midair with the wild winds roaring. Goddess. Monster. _Maiden._

"I'm just me," she whispered, but that wasn't true anymore. Some of her wasn't much like her at all.

* * *

Nora struggled to a sitting position, coughing up dust and brushing plaster out of her hair. She was inside, with her legs in someone's bathtub and her back on a tiled floor. This was puzzling, since she was pretty sure that she'd been in the sky a minute ago. Then she noticed the hole in the ceiling, and Yang sprawled on top of the shattered remains of a porcelain sink.

"That was something," she said, pushing herself up so that she could crouch next to her teammate. "Yang?"

_"Ow."_

She twitched once, twice, then flopped onto her back. A metal faucet rolled into her lap. "I guess we can cross skydiving without a parachute off the list," Nora said, grinning. Then she winced and touched her eyebrow. It felt a little swollen—the fall had been hard enough to bruise her through her aura. Painful, but kinda cool.

"Okay!" Yang moved to the window. "Let's go find the others and—" She cut off midsentence, staring open-mouthed out the window. "Oh. Oh, _shit."_

It was never a good thing when Nora was reminded of Ren's hometown. The rubble in the streets, the shouts and cries and shrieks of pain, the occasional Grimm nosing around in search of prey... all very familiar. Yang had gone still, and the windowsill cracked under her fingers. Nora nudged her shoulder.

"C'mon. We should find Dove and Russ."

"Right."

Motion was good. At least, Nora always felt better when she was moving, and she thought it was probably safe to guess that Yang was the same way. They climbed down, wincing when they got a better look at the damage the two of them had done to the place. They'd gone pretty far, mostly because they'd slipped off the edge of the coliseum before it had even hit anything. Now they could see that the CCT was down, partly crushed under the coliseum.

"Guess we're not calling Raspberry, then," Yang said, in that _trying to be chipper but really about to break down and cry_ sort of tone that Nora would sometimes use around Ren. She now understood why he always saw right through it.

"They're okay." Nora grinned—it came easily, even though she was starting to feel like she was ice-skating in late march. "I mean, c'mon. It's them." They had to be fine, so they were, and she wasn't going to panic. Yet.

From somewhere far-off, she thought she heard her name. The two of them jogged off in that direction, though they couldn't move that fast—they kept having to stop and put down a Beowolf or a Creep.

"Yang! Nora! Russel!" _Yep, definitely Dove._

"Heya!" Nora hopped down from the top—side?—of the CCT, landing just to his left. He jumped, then put a hand to his face.

"Did you have to—"

"Nope!" She gave him a bop on the nose. He tried to scowl, but went cross-eyed and ruined the effect.

"Where's Russel?" Yang asked, dropping down behind Nora.

Dove spread his hands helplessly. "I told him to use his semblance to get off the coliseum, he might not have landed yet. Anyway, there's a more pressing issue..." He trailed off and pointed under the rubble. Nora craned her neck to see, then yelped.

"Salutations!"

"Oh my god, your... the..." Yang trailed off. "Uh... are those sparks?"

The girl squirmed in discomfort, making the rebar slide a little further through her chest. "Perhaps?"

Nora glanced at Yang and shrugged. The two of them took either end of the bit of wall the girl was holding up, supporting it while she dropped to the ground. The rebar slid out, and she got to her feet a little awkwardly. They let the wall drop.

"I'm Penny," the girl said. A few drops of rain landed on the holes in her chest and back, making them spark even more violently. She frowned, then reached around to pinch the skin around them closed. It stuck that way, as though the torn edges had become soft and sticky as putty. _So gross and yet so cool..._

Nora narrowed her eyes as she took a second look at the girl's orange hair. "Wait... you're my evil twin!"

Penny blinked, tilting her head to one side. "I don't know what that means."

"Well, okay, not _evil,_ but... you know Ren, right?"

"Oh!" Penny brightened. "Yes, I do! Raspberry are my friends."

"Any friend of Ren's is a friend of mine," Nora declared, straightening her back and doing her best impression of a military salute, which was little more haphazard and full of drunken swaying than real salutes—and therefore _better!_ She'd been waiting to say that line for literally her entire life, but... it didn't _really_ make sense for Ruby and Pyrrha, since she mostly knew them through Yang, and she'd missed the chance being peeved at Sky for stealing her partner.

"Ditto with Ruby," Yang added. Her salute was just a flick of one hand, but Nora still approved.

"Wonderful!" Penny bounced up and down, then stopped when she realized the one arm was flopping around like a dead fish. "Oh. I appear to have lost power to my—um... Ouch?"

"We are talking about that," Yang decided. "But, you know... later."

"Right." Dove coughed, then cupped both hands around his mouth and shouted, "Russel!"

"Yo!"

The four of them craned their necks to look up, and found a considerably more tattered Russel drifting downward. He alighted on the ground next to Penny, then sagged a little when he returned to normal weight.

"What happened?" Yang asked.

"Gryphon." He made a face. "Being carried off by one of those things? _Less_ crappy when you can float, but still sucks." Then he blinked, his brow furrowing as he took in the hole in Penny's shirt. "Uh... are you... okay?"

"I am one hundred percent functional!" Then, _"Hic!_ Perhaps it would be more accurate to estimate approximately eighty percent functionality."

"Fifty lien says robot," Russel said. "Takers?"

"Don't bet about people in front of them," Dove scolded him.

"So it's better to do it behind their backs?"

Yang snickered. "Heh, _bet-_ ter." Nora booed.

"Um..." Penny pointed behind them. "Perhaps we should attempt to contain the situation?"

Nora turned to find an Ursa staring at her with liquid-red eyes, blinking slowly and lumbering up the street. It was a _big_ one, too, covered in bone spines and scraping the buildings on either side of it as it went.

Dove huffed, blowing pale smoke everywhere. The Ursa took a swipe at him. Yang punched its paw out of the way, and the fight was on. Nora was a little disappointed. All she really got to do was snap one of its hind legs. It collapsed into a sitting position, Russel shoved a knife between two armor plates on its back, and then Penny cut its head off with a bunch of floating swords.

"We need to find Raspberry," Yang decided, as soon as its body started to dissolve. Nora nodded so vigorously that there was a warning twinge in her neck.

"Yes!" Penny agreed immediately. "I would also like to search for my friends!"

They took off down the street—Dove had suggested doing a spiral, which would hopefully let them find RSPR if they were in the fairgrounds. But, well... there was a reason Nora was reminded of Kuroyuri.

Not even two hundred feet into their search pattern, they had to stop. Someone else had been launched by the crazy tilting of the coliseum, and he'd landed... not _badly,_ exactly, he was still alive, but he was sprawled on the ground and she was pretty sure legs weren't supposed to bend like that. Yang crouched down next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Can you hear me?"

A low groan.

"I don't think we can move him," Dove said, peering over their shoulders. He was turning a little green. "That's... ah..."

Nora wished Ren were here. The guy looked terrified, and she thought he deserved a second or two of peace. She wasn't too good with the whole calm and relaxation thing, but...

"Hey, mister." She gave him a little tap on the nose, like he was someone she knew well. Tried to tug at that hidden energy that made him get out of bed in the morning, made him face the day with a smile even when he wasn't sure he would make it to tomorrow. There was a little spark, feeble and fragile, and his breathing eased as pale blue light spread over his skin.

"Did you just..." Dove trailed off.

"Yep!" She mustered a grin. "It's gonna hurt a lot, but I think we can move him without worrying about it killing him."

"But—don't you need a chant or something for that?" Russel asked.

"I don't know. Ren didn't."

Yang picked the guy up, flinching but not hesitating when he let out a quiet moan of pain. They kept walking, making turns at random, helping people out from under the rubble and killing Grimm trying to break into houses and, twice, knocking out a member of the White Fang. There was nothing to tie them up with, though, so they had to settle for throwing their weapons down a storm drain.

Finally, they saw something that looked official—a line of red tape across the path that led to the airfield. Guarding it were two familiar faces. "Brine!" Velvet waved them through, and Yatsuhashi stepped aside so that they could pass. "Are you—oh." She stared wide-eyed at the man, who was starting to stir.

"Is there somewhere we can drop him?" Dove asked.

Velvet's brow furrowed. "Did one of you unlock his aura?"

"Um..." Nora felt her face going a little pink. "Was that bad?"

"Not exactly. Grimm will be more likely to target him in future, but... just looking at him, I don't think you had a choice."

Yang handed the man off to Yatsuhashi. He moaned again.

"If you guys are still in fighting shape, try and lead more people back here." Velvet told them. "We're gathering everyone at the airfield, but a lot of us are tied up keeping it clear of Grimm."

Dove nodded. "We'll see what we can do."

And so they turned right back around and headed for the crushed remains of Amity coliseum, amidst screams and shouts and the roars of distant Grimm. The light drizzle turned to rain, and the rain turned into a downpour... and Nora threw herself into the work. Ren was fine, so she wasn't going to panic. But that was impossible—so instead she drowned it out saving people from collapsed buildings.

At least her coping mechanisms were productive.

* * *

"What the _fuck_ is with this weather?!" Cardin demanded, as the torrential rain turned into hail.

"Nothing about today is normal," Sun pointed out. "Why should the weather be different?" Weiss had to fight the urge to cringe just _looking_ at him—his normally spiky hair had been slicked down against his head, his tail was hanging behind him like a sullen waterlogged rope, and he _still_ wasn't wearing a shirt.

"You know you're going to get sick, right?" she said.

He twitched. "You sound like Neptune."

"That's because we're both right, dude."

Blake halted in the middle of the street, so suddenly that Weiss ran into her. "What are you doing? We need to find—"

She didn't get to finish the sentence, because she'd realized what her partner was looking at. It was a whip, Dust-enhanced by the look of it, coiled in an enormous slushy puddle. "What..."

"I think I recognize it," Blake said quietly, crouching down to get a closer look. "Maybe it's just a similar weapon."

"We don't have time for this," Winter told her.

Blake didn't move for another moment—she was still studying the whip, and looking over her shoulder Weiss realized the metal had torn wide open. Dust was in the water. Weiss slapped her hand away when she moved to touch it. "Don't. You'll freeze yourself to the ground."

Winter cleared her throat impatiently.

"Right, of course," Weiss said. She tugged at Blake's wrist, and she finally stood up again. Her hair was sticking to her forehead, and both ears were pinned flat against the rain.

"This is spring weather in Atlas," Weiss pointed out, when Neptune shivered exaggeratedly for the third time in as many minutes. Cardin flipped her the bird. She glared at him, but Winter held up a hand and the budding argument was stopped cold.

Finally, they came upon other people rather than stray Grimm. Winter hailed a group of particularly soggy-looking Hunters-in-training, and all six of them tensed. "Who're you?" the one in front demanded. Weiss didn't recognize him, but he had a Haven patch on his jacket.

"Specialist Winter Schnee, and several students."

"Hey Milo!" Neptune waved.

At that, all of them relaxed, and Milo even laughed. "Holy crap, Sun! Have you never heard of a raincoat?"

"Skin is plenty waterproof!" Sun insisted. His teeth were chattering.

"What are you all doing out here?" Winter demanded. "Is there a perimeter being set up? Search and rescue?"

"There's people protecting the Eastern airfield," a girl said. "That's the safe spot for Vale, and I think there's another one at Beacon. We're supposed to look for civilians and guide them back there, but..." She trailed off.

One of the others, wearing a hooded cloak that reminded her of Ruby in fluorescent magenta, picked up from there. "There aren't that many left on the street. Some hid to get away from the Grimm and the rain, and others... um..."

"Most of the survivors got to the safe zone right away," Milo filled in. "Now it's just stragglers and people who got separated or are looking for someone else, that kind of thing."

Winter grimaced. "Where's Goodwitch? We're not going to be able to get this back under control while there are still gaping holes in the streets."

"She's fixing the craters," the hooded one replied. "No way of telling which one she's at, though."

"Not sure there's much point," Milo said, scowling up at the sky. "There are flying Grimm getting in, and they've broken through the outer wall in places."

None of them bothered with small talk once the essential information was exchanged. The six Haven students passed by them, heading deeper into the city. Winter took the lead, gesturing in the direction of the airfield. "We'll report back. I suspect we'll be more effective once we know what's going on. Besides, I'd like to get my sword back."

Weiss couldn't _quite_ speak to BRYN's predilection for trouble, but she was starting to notice a pattern—plans their team made tended to go wrong. This was no exception. They hadn't made it more than a few blocks when lightning flashed overhead. The rumble of thunder that followed was _deafening._ Impossibly so—she could feel the ground shaking, as if another bomb had gone off. Were there still more cars, or was that something else?

"Fuck today," Cardin grumbled.

Sun barked out a laugh. "Right? We're on, like, shoe number seven."

"It's still not the _worst_ day I've had," Jaune said. "Which is pretty sad if you think about—" A shriek cut him off in mid-sentence, and they all rushed towards the noise.

"This way!" Blake grabbed Weiss' hand and led her through an alleyway, saving a few seconds. They were in the lead when they came around the corner to where the scream had come from. Weiss stumbled, slipped on a puddle, and went down hard on one knee. There was a young man in front of them, probably twenty-something. Human. His throat was cut. The edges of the wound were unnaturally smooth, as though it had been opened by a razor. Her hand went to her eye.

"Was that... him?"

Blake tensed, her ears pricking up, her head swiveling to scan their surroundings. "I think so."

Winter strode past them and crouched to examine him. Then she turned and pointed to another red spatter on the side of a wall about thirty feet away. "If it _is_ him, he's heading for the airfield." Her hand twisted. It took a moment, much longer than normal, but soon the pale Beowolf had taken its place by her side. "I'll cut him off. The rest of you, follow me on foot and flank him."

She was off before Weiss had the chance to say anything, or point out that plan would only work if he was alone. Still... she could remember the difference between him and Perry, or even the Lieutenant. If one of his followers got through, there would be a fight. People might die. If _he_ got through...

There was the sound of a glyph forming up ahead. Probably another summons, by the pitch. Weiss and the others were already in a dead sprint, but she added a line of glyphs to speed them up. Then they hurtled around a corner and skidded to a stop.

Weiss shut her bad eye and raised her rapier. It was a shock, seeing him—it had been the second time, too, even if it had only been for a second. He looked like something out of a nightmare. His bright red hair had gone the color of a scab in the rain, and it lay flatter, emphasizing his horns. Odd, how he utterly he dwarfed the Lieutenant next to him despite being several inches shorter.

He turned his head to look over his shoulder—barely a glance. Dismissive. It lingered on her eye, then on Blake, then returned to Winter.

"Ho-boy," Sun said, grinning nervously. "This is awkward."

"Can you two deal with the big guy?" Jaune asked.

"Sure. Why not? It's just a _chainsaw,_ who's afraid of _chainsaws?"_

"You sure that's a good idea?" Neptune coughed. "I mean, certain people may have had certain experiences with the other guy—"

Weiss didn't bother listening to him. She moved around the Lieutenant—he didn't try and block her advance. It seemed like he was letting it happen, so that it would be his leader who would have the privilege of killing her. _Great._

"Yo!" Cardin clapped his hands together. "Remember me?"

"Vividly." He beheaded Winter's pale Beowolf and then slashed at her. She blocked with the handle of her borrowed gun. Weiss ran at him—like _hell_ was she letting her sister fight this monster alone and without her usual weapon.

She knew better than to try and use Dust without thinking, this time. Better to think of him as a bomb—too much energy and he'd go off, you needed to make surgical cuts on the right wires until he couldn't hurt you anymore. She aimed for the back of his neck first, then his side when he blocked that. Blake came up next to her, and between the two of them they could deflect most of what he threw at them.

Winter backed off a bit, using the gun for supporting fire and her glyphs to block some of his attacks, as well as tripping him up and summoning distractions. Jaune and Cardin circled around to his back, and the former even managed to stab him just above the shoulder blade before he whipped his sword around and snarled.

"Not so impressive without an ambush, are you?" Weiss taunted. That earned her a nick on the arm, one that went through her sleeve but didn't break skin. She kept the dead eye closed tight and her teeth clenched.

The wind picked up, snapping violently at their clothes. Cardin yelped when a crumpled aluminum can was blown into his face, and in the instant he was distracted Adam slashed across his chest. He stumbled backwards, but then Jaune was in front of him, shield up. It happened quickly—the red blade dipped into the sheath, then cut an arc in the air in front of him. Jaune fell backwards, his shield clattering to the street in two pieces, blood dripping from a long cut across his arm.

Cardin dove forward so that he was lying over Jaune, gripping both of Adam's ankles, and then froze. The faunus stumbled, swearing viciously when Winter summoned a blizzard of tiny Nevermores to rip at his head and arms. Weiss jabbed her rapier at his chest, and Blake wrapped her ribbon around his throat and heaved him off balance. He went down with a shout, his knees bending at an excruciating angle. Then he snarled and pushed his sword against Cardin's back. His aura flickered.

Weiss drove her rapier into him point-first, and when it slid off his aura she kept going until her shoulder crashed into him, making a wet smacking sound against his sodden jacket. Something hit the side of her head and she stumbled back, reeling, but by then Blake had taken her place and was forcing his arm away from Cardin. He unfroze and rolled out of the way, gasping for breath. Jaune groaned and tried to untangle their legs.

Then Adam whirled around, rain flying from his hair, the tips of his horns, the edges of his mask. He took a step forward, drew back—and Blake smashed the hilt of her sword into his face, knocking the mask off. His eyes weren't red like she'd imagined but a warm brown. They narrowed, his grip on the sword tightening. Then he lunged. Weiss jerked back and out of the way, her throat passing within inches of the blade, and returned with a strike of her own. He half-sheathed the sword, blocked it, then whirled around to kick away another white Beowolf.

Jaune was up again. Weiss hasted him with her right hand and pressed the attack with her left, working in tandem with Blake to keep Adam retreating. Every blow he knocked aside made the blade of his sword glow brighter—it wasn't just Dust that powered him up, then. _Wonderful._

He whirled just in time to deal with their leader, who was making aggressive but sloppy overhead chops towards his head and shoulders. On its own it probably wouldn't have done much, but sped up he presented more of a threat. Weiss took the opportunity to jab at the exposed back again and again, and eventually Adam was forced to shove Jaune bodily aside and stumble forward, then turn to face them all without being surrounded. He was breathing hard, his hair falling limply into his eyes, his teeth bared.

Then Weiss and Winter worked together, brining up more glyphs to box him in. He rolled between two of them, hopped up on a third, then turned his head to the left and smirked. It only took a moment to realize what he'd been looking at, when a small Ursa barreled out from a side street and into the middle of the fight. It didn't discriminate in the slightest—a swipe at the Lieutenant's face, a snap of its jaws that would have taken off Cardin's head if he hadn't gotten to his feet in time, all aimed at everyone around it with equal malice.

Weiss looked away for half a second when one of its great hind paws kicked out at her, ducking to avoid getting knocked halfway down the street. Adam had been waiting for it. He slid under the Ursa and crashed into Blake. She slipped, and both of them went down in a puddle of filthy water, kicking up spray.

His laugh was hysterical, _unhinged._ "I can do it now. I can do it. I'm sorry, _fuck you,_ I'm sorry!"

Weiss stabbed him two-handed just between his shoulder blades and pressed down. The point of her rapier kept skittering back and forth, scratching at his aura, and she gripped the blade with her right hand to steady it. He turned his head to the side to see what was going on, leaving their faces inches apart.

She opened the dead eye. He jerked back, just a quick reflexive motion that left his throat exposed. Blake reached up and jabbed at his Adam's apple, then kneed him in the gut. He listed sideways and she hissed—there was blood in the water, rain pouring down their faces, and then a hand came down and grabbed him by the collar and _heaved._

The red blade nicked Blake's side again as he was hauled away, leaving two parallel trails of red. Then Cardin stumbled and went down on one knee, still gripping his collar. He held his breath but his semblance couldn't or wouldn't stick, and then Adam jabbed the sword behind him and Cardin was swearing and rolling away from him. There was a long rip his pants, stretching across his thigh, though it was impossible to tell how much of the liquid soaking the cloth was blood and how much was water.

That made three of them out of aura. Weiss doubted she was far behind. Winter had summoned again, a Gryphon this time, but they didn't need more attack power—they needed something big and sturdy to tank hits. A glance at Sun and Neptune showed that neither of them could be spared from the fight with the Lieutenant. That left... _oh._

She stepped back. Winter had managed to box him in for the moment, buying them a second to breathe. Weiss tried to think of the Atlesian Knight, the lessons it had taught her—literal ones, like keeping her aura up and better ways to utilize her Dust, but more personal ones as well. It had led her to Beacon, to her team, to Blake, and everything she'd learned since. The glyph spun once, twice, then shuddered and blinked out. _Damn it—_

"Weiss," Winter snapped. "Now is not the time to try new techniques."

She bit her lip. What was she _supposed_ to do, then?! The two of them were the only ones with any aura left, and they were hardly front-line fighters. Winter had a gun rather than a sword, she couldn't even _block_ the way she was used to.

Another tremor shook the ground. Everyone stumbled, and one of the glyphs Winter had been maintaining crumbled under the strain. Adam leapt free, twisted in midair, and aimed a slash at Jaune's head. He blocked it with his sword, then shouted something incoherent and headbutted him. Adam reeled, drew back to strike again, then grunted when Jaune shoulder-checked him and tried to stab him.

Blake was up, now, but she was listing sideways and pressing a hand to her side. Was it deep? Weiss couldn't tell through all the dirt and rain.

Cardin limped to his partner's side, flourishing his mace. Weiss considered casting a haste glyph, but then Adam kicked the injury on his thigh and he crumpled. She gritted her teeth, glaring through the one eye that still worked. She was half _blind_ because of this bottom-feeding _cretin,_ and somehow that wasn't enough motivation to summon the stupid Knight?!

_Wait. Half blind._

On a mad impulse she shut her good eye, leaving only the empty one open. Everything went black, and she imagined the way Adam lit up when his semblance took over, his hair and his coat and the lines in his mask burning red. Then she thought back further, to the Deathstalker that she and Blake had fought almost entirely in the dark. Her heart pounding, her ears straining for any noise, the world feeling tight and cramped. She was exposed, vulnerable. Blake shouted something and grabbed her hand, yanking her sideways, and for an instant she was _there,_ leaping through the dark onto the back of a monster she couldn't see. Her right hand twisted.

The glyph bloomed into existence underneath her, making a sound like a thousand windchimes falling to the ground, like someone had swept all the crystal glasses and expensive dishes off a table at one of Father's parties. Her eye snapped open again, and the Deathstalker reared up. It was only halfway free, struggling with its forelegs, snapping its pincers and wriggling. She could feel the summon starting to fail, not because she'd done it wrong but because it was _enormous,_ and there just wasn't enough left in her to give the whole thing form. It was beached, immobile, but it was _tough._ Adam's sword bounced off its mask and it hissed, snapping its jaws and forcing him to roll out of the way of a pincer. Weiss went down on one knee, struggling to breathe. The glyph wobbled, but it was easier to keep it steady now that she wasn't trying to bring the Grimm out further.

Barriers popped into existence behind Adam, herding him back towards the summons. Jaune and Cardin came at him from either side. The Deathstalker was like a living wall, jabbing at him with its pincers and blocking attacks meant for her teammates. Blake leaned against one of its back legs and threw her sword. A gunshot went off, sending it spinning towards her former partner. He ducked, took a glancing hit from Cardin's mace. Winter trapped one of his feet in a glyph and he overbalanced. Jaune caught him as he fell and shoved him into the gaping mouth of the Deathstalker. It bit down. Adam swore, landed a kick to Jaune's face, then let out a howl as his aura finally, _finally_ gave out. He was left struggling against the massive jaws, trying to prop them open with one arm as his coat turned even redder.

"That's enough," Weiss told the Grimm. It ignored her. Adam was still struggling, still trying to get at Cardin. _He won't stop. He won't stop unless he dies, I can't dismiss the Deathstalker or he'll just keep going._

"Stop it!" she shouted, kicking at one of the flailing legs, caught halfway out of the pavement. The Deathstalker paused, gave one last shake of its head, and then went still. Weiss could hear him breathing, slow and ragged, and the whirring of the Lieutenant's chainsaw. Then a gunshot, the crackling of electricity, and it was only the breathing.

"Both targets contained," Winter confirmed. Weiss sat down hard on the pavement. The glyph wobbled once, then twice, then shattered. The Deathstalker dissipated in a brilliant stream of white flecks. Her heart dropped, her hand stretching out towards it as if she could pull it back just like that, but he was out, he was standing up—

Winter took two steps, raised the gun, fired. Adam dropped to the ground like a rag doll. The pool of water beneath him rippled, then turned a murky red.


	49. Covalent Bonds [10]

It felt like there should have been a hush, after the gunshot. A moment of silence, if not for the fallen monster then for the sheer shock of seeing Weiss' sister _kill_ someone. Or maybe to mourn his grandfather's shield, which had been rent right down the middle. He hadn't even known that was _possible—_ it had stood up to Ursai, King Taijitu, _Yang._ But now it was broken, and he had only a long scratch across his arm instead of, well... him being in two pieces instead of his shield. It had saved him, and he thought that should earn it a nice sendoff.

There wasn't a moment of silence, though. Their breathing was harsh and ragged, Cardin was muttering a constant stream of curses under his breath, and Sun flopped to the ground with a mighty _splash._ The rain poured down, more lightning forked across the sky, thunder rolled and the ground shook again.

Blake stumbled over to the body, falling into a kneeling position and putting a hand on his back. She didn't say anything. Just kind of... stared at him. Their blood was mixing in the puddle beneath them. Jaune would have tried to help—her, _not_ the dead guy—but he was all out. Drained dry. He walked over to her anyway, sat in a pool of filthy, icy water about an inch deep, and tried not to look at the little hole in the back of Adam's head.

Weiss came over, too. She wasn't hurt, but she was swaying back and forth, holding her arms out to keep her balance. He could sympathize—it felt like someone had boiled every muscle in his body. Her approach was slower than his, like she wasn't sure it would be welcomed, but she knelt next to her partner and drew her into a hug.

Jaune coughed. "Uh... should we... say something?"

"Sure," Cardin said. "Fuck that guy."

"I mean like a eulogy or... something."

"He tried to kill us. _Fuck_ that guy."

Sun scratched his head. "He's, uh... he's got a point. _Wow,_ this is a weird day."

"I don't even know where I'd start." Blake looked down at him for a moment. "I guess... I'm sorry, too." Her finger traced the edge of the rose on his coat. Then she tried to stand up. Failed. Tried again, more carefully this time, letting Weiss help.

"Great." Cardin clapped his hands a few times. "Kumbaya. Feel the love. Let's get the hell out of here before something eats us."

"Cardin, I swear I'm going to—" Weiss started, but Blake nudged her arm and she cut off the threat with a sigh. _"Fine."_

"We're going to the safe zone." Winter didn't leave any room for debate. "All of you are injured and out of aura. You're in no condition to fight."

"But—" Blake started to say, then paused. Looked at Weiss, who was glaring pointedly at the twin gashes in her side. "...Okay."

Jaune sagged in relief. He was feeling mostly fine—as fine as you could be when you're drenched in freezing rain and have a cut on your arm that's longer than some knives, anyway—but Blake had just been not-quite-stabbed and she was _definitely_ the kind of person who would try to sweep that under the rug.

Cardin turned out to have the most immediately problematic injury. Partly because it was his leg—Blake could walk, it just looked like it _hurt—_ and partly because he, unlike Blake, was way too heavy for one person to support. Jaune and Sun each took one shoulder, and he whined incessantly about being carried.

They hadn't gone far before the rumbling started again—and didn't stop for several long seconds. Thunder rolled during the quake, the two sounds blending together, and the sky was going from black to something almost _greenish._ Then, finally, it ended. Jaune became acutely aware of all of their breathing as they slogged towards the airfield.

Trouble came up only once, when a Deathstalker skittered around a corner—and this time _not_ one that Weiss had... pulled out of the ground? _Since when can she do that, anyway?_ Winter took care of it by using a set of glyphs to flip it onto its back. Another barrier pinned it there while she shot it. When the gun went off, Weiss flinched a little and looked anywhere but at Winter.

As they approached the safe zone, they started seeing other people. One group—Jaune was pretty sure they were the ones RSPR had fought in the teams matches—surrounded them like a kind of honor guard. Then they were through, and the noise redoubled. There were injured people groaning, children crying, adults shouting for their friends and family. People everywhere. Even as they approached, an Atlesian airship took off from the field and circled up into the sky, followed seconds later by a civilian transport.

Both docked at the massive warship hovering over the city, which was holding up remarkably well, considering. Nevermores moved in to harass it, but they were shot down as soon as they got too close. Even the storm didn't seem to shake it much—he suspected they were using Dust to keep the lightning off of it. A nearby dropship was struck three times just while Jaune was watching, and the much bigger target right below it wasn't touched.

"Winter."

They all turned around and saw the General standing in an open plaza, surrounded by a group of nine armored soldiers. "Catch." He tossed something at her—her saber. She snagged it, then returned it to her hip.

"Thank you, sir."

He looked at each of them in turn and hummed. "There's first aid that way." He pointed with his gloved hand.

Winter nodded. "We had an encounter on the way here."

The General frowned. "Grimm?"

"No. Taurus."

His eyebrows flared, showing something between shock and worry. "Is—"

"No longer a threat, sir."

Another little flinch from Weiss. Jaune cleared his throat. "Uh, maybe we should head to the medical... wait... who is that?" He pointed over the General's shoulder at a tall man who was approaching them with the kind of purpose that could only come from someone who had urgent business— _or_ wanted to kill them. Judging by the look on his face, the red eyes, and the gigantic sword in his hand, the second one was way too likely for comfort.

But when the General saw him, he looked more annoyed than anything else. "Qrow."

"Jimmy."

Cardin made a little choking noise as he stifled a laugh. The General _definitely_ noticed.

"Wait... who are you?" He seemed so familiar, but Jaune couldn't place him. Even his _name_ seemed like something he'd heard before. The man squinted at him for a second. Then he cracked a smile.

"You've met my nieces."

There was a short pause, during which Jaune thought back to all the vague, terrifying references Ruby had made to her uncle. "... _never hurts to shoot it again just to make sure it's dead ... juggled me and Yang when we were babies ... blood_ everywhere, _and he never does his own laundry so Dad was ready to kill him..."_ Jaune gaped. Winter crossed her arms and scowled.

"What _are_ you doing here, anyway?" she asked, in tones that suggested she wasn't asking an honest question so much as she was telling him to go away. He gave her a roguish grin—roguish seemed like his face's default setting.

Then he turned a little more serious. "I'm looking for Pyrrha Nikos."

Jaune blinked. "Uh... what? Why?"

"Classified."

Winter twitched. "And what imbecile let _you_ in on classified information?"

"Ozpin," Qrow shot back, smirking cheekily. Jaune reeled for a second, because the resemblance to Yang was suddenly _terrifying._

General Ironwood sighed. "We're overburdened enough as it is." Then he glanced behind him at a group of civilians who were giving him _very_ unfriendly looks. "Can you at least tell them we're not trying to abduct them?"

"You aren't?"

 _"Qrow._ This isn't an invasion and we _aren't_ safe here. My ship is the only secure location we have that's big enough to fit a decent chunk of the refugees, and people are refusing to board. It's _problematic."_

"So? Wave some guns around, that _always_ works."

"Now is _not_ the time for this!"

Qrow rolled his eyes. "Look, Jimmy, nothing I say is going to convince a crowd that Atlas is on their side right now, and I _don't_ have time. Send somebody to find me if you get wind of where Pyrrha is. I've gotta go."

"Wait!" Jaune burst out. "Um... have you seen Ruby? Are she and her team okay?"

"Most of them are with Ozpin, which is about as fine as anyone can get right now. We're one short—that's why I'm here."

He swallowed nervously. "Right. Okay."

Red eyes narrowed, giving him a calculating look. "Hey. If you see Pyrrha, tell her not to be an idiot and to go find Ozpin. She's in _way_ over her head."

Jaune nodded. Trying to tell a friend she's in way over her head? While some unspecified danger looms over them, and he keeps running into people he's never met playing roles he doesn't understand in plots he's in the dark about? _Story of my life._

* * *

Yang winced as a bead of sweat trailed down her cheek. Her nose itched, and her back was starting to ache. She was kneeling in the wreckage of one of the largest festival stalls, one that was more like a restaurant than a food cart, supporting a massive timber beam across her shoulders. It was that classic Atlas pose, which she'd always thought looked awesome but had now decided was _horrible._ It didn't help that she'd been holding it for the past ten minutes or so.

"How's it going, Pavo?" she asked.

"I can't do it," the little boy whimpered, his voice breathy from the strain of trying to free himself.

Russel forced a chuckle. "Hey, no sweat little dude. You got this. Just keep wigglin'."

"I _am."_

There was a crack from somewhere above them, and all of a sudden the weight on her shoulders nearly doubled. Yang huffed out a breath, squeezing her eyes shut. The little boy squealed in fright. She craned her neck to the side, but all she could see was Russel's back. He'd lifted up a table that the kid had been trapped under and was trying to coax him out, but his foot was caught on something.

"Is the lady gonna drop the ceiling?"

Yang blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Pfft, nah. I could do this for _hours."_ She sort of had been—that was the problem. A lot of people had been stuck in collapsed buildings when the coliseum and the CCT fell.

"Tell you what," Russel said, leaning forward and reaching one hand under the table. "I think you're loose enough for me to pull you out now."

"No!"

"It's not gonna hurt. Promise."

"You said that last time!"

Yang drew in another breath. She tried to let it out slowly, but halfway through she cut off and started coughing. "How about this? You let Russel pull you out, and you get to be an honorary Huntsman."

"...Really?"

"Yeah! I'll ask my sister to make you a badge and everything. She's a team leader, she can do stuff like that."

The little boy was silent for a moment.

"I bet you can do it," Russel coaxed. "You're a little superhero, right?"

"...Yeah."

"Heck yeah, you are! Hang on to me, okay? One... two... three!"

Pavo howled in pain as he was tugged through, then started to cry. "Hey now, it's okay, you're out, I gotcha..."

"It hurt! You said it wasn't gonna!"

"But it's better now, right? No more table." Pavo hiccupped and started to sniffle. "Okay. Let's get out from under this roof so that Yang can put it down."

"Thanks," she grunted. "'Preciate it."

"Hah." Russel moved past her, crouching so that Pavo could ride on his shoulders. Yang blinked—the kid had a feathery tail trailing behind him and a shock of iridescent blue hair. _Way_ more distinctive-looking than she'd expected. As soon as they got to the doorway, she hefted the beam she was holding up and rolled out from under it, letting the building finish its collapse.

"Success!" Russel announced, giving Pavo a little bounce. He was clinging to the green mohawk like a set of reins, still crying, trying to wipe his nose on his sleeve. A young man dashed over. He, too, had a feathery tail—but on his, you could see the distinctive pattern of a peacock.

"This your dad?" Yang asked. Pavo nodded and held out his arms. Russel lifted him off his back and passed him over to the father, who wrapped him up in a hug just shy of bone-breaking.

"Careful of his ankle," Russel said. "It's, uh... it's scraped up pretty bad."

"Hurts," Pavo mumbled, resting his head on the man's shoulder and sniffling some more.

The father grabbed each of their hands in turn, shaking them hard enough that it might have hurt if they didn't have aura. "Thank you _so much,_ I... I don't know what I would have... _thank you."_

Yang grinned and winked. "Just doing our jobs, sir."

"I want a badge. You said."

"Pavo—"

"Tell you what." Yang rummaged around in her pocket, finding a crumpled up candy wrapper. "Uh... anyone have anything to write with?" One of the other adults tossed her a pen.

Yang wrote _IOU 1 honorary Huntsman badge_ in a messy scrawl and held it out to Pavo. The ink was already starting to blur from the heavy rain, and she had to hold on tight to keep the wind from snatching it away.

"You have to sign it. So it's oh-fish-ull."

She needed a second to reboot her brain after that—Ruby used to over-pronounce big words too and it was _still_ the cutest thing ever. Then she signed with a flourish and handed back both wrapper and pen.

"Look for team Brine or team Raspberry once the dust settles," she said. "We'll hook you up."

That was the closest thing to a break they had for a while. Dove, Nora, and Penny, who had been keeping an eye out for Grimm and protecting the people outside, lead the group. Yang and Russel were the rear guard. The civilians they'd collected huddled together in the middle, letting out noises of terror and dismay every time they spotted one of the monsters. There were a couple close calls—a Beowolf that jumped from the roof of a nearby building took a bite out of Dove's sleeve at one point—but they all made it back to the airfield.

"We're going with _them?"_ one of the civilians burst out, when they saw the armored soldiers waiting for them. "But—"

"It's not safe here, or in Vale." Dove pointed to the massive Atlesian warship hovering over the city. "That's the safest place to be right now. You'll all be ferried back down as soon the Grimm are gone." He glanced at Pavo. "Plus they have an actual clinic on board. We're doing our best down here, but we don't have that much in the way of supplies."

It was something like the twelfth time they'd had that exchange. Sometimes people went along without too much fuss afterwards. Sometimes they refused to board at all and joined the steadily growing crowd that was just hanging around, giving the soldiers mistrustful looks and drawing Grimm. Mercifully, almost all of this group fell into the former category and got on the line for the next airship.

Then, as BRYN were turning around to head back to the wreckage, the ground shook. People screamed. One of the soldiers held both their hands out. "Stay calm. This has been happening for a while, it's no—"

The rumbling got louder, and there was a sudden jolt that almost knocked Yang off her feet. She turned her head, brow furrowing. It felt like the tremors were coming _from_ somewhere. A mountain in the distance stood out—she could see its peak trembling.

"The hell?" Russel muttered. "Don't tell me there's a fucking volcano. There's _got_ to be a limit."

More rumbling, though it was starting to fade now. Then, a sound like the cracking of an egg writ large. Another quake, and a plume of dust rose from that same mountain. Rocks crumbled away, but where lava might have been in a volcano, there was only empty space.

"Oh." Russel laughed, more than a little hysterically. "Oh, _sure._ Why would it be a volcano? That's just _stupid,_ I shouldn't be so _optimistic—"_

"Shut up, Russel," Dove hissed. "You'll scare the civilians."

Russsel gestured incredulously at the mountain, just as there was a mighty but distant crash and a sheet of rock fell away. The inside was so dark it was almost black. And... _scaled?_

"Aw, _c'mon..."_ He let his hand drop. "That's... there's no _way_ that's actually..."

Then, with a _wrenching_ sound that was earsplitting even from miles away, a batlike wing burst from inside the hollow mountain. It looked perfectly normal sized to Yang, until she looked at the trees at the base of the peak and her brain managed to form some sense of _scale._

The screaming started, but she hardly even heard it. She watched, transfixed, as the massive Grimm... _hatched._ There wasn't any other way to describe it, it was hatching from an egg the size of Beacon itself, stretching a great long neck and screeching in triumph. Its mouth went all the way down both sides of its throat, where the edges of the opening were webbed over with strands of flesh in a way that made her a little ill. It perched for a moment on the pile of rocks it had just escaped, its head turning slowly to look towards the school. Then those great black wings unfurled, and it launched itself into the sky.

Dove grabbed her shoulder. "The warship!"

Sure enough, when she tried to follow where the thing's head was pointed she could see that it was staring right at Atlas' pride and joy, and the place where all the refugees had been sent. It was well defended—so well that it was weathering both the raging storm and the occasional Nevermore, but not well enough to handle that _thing._

"Damn it!" Dove hissed. "What are we supposed to—"

Penny stepped up, the swords over her head coalescing into a tight metal ring. A bright green glow started in the center, building until it was almost blinding. Then it blasted outwards, slamming into the Wyvern's chest and tearing a smoking chunk out of the armor plating there. Its head turned towards them, its six red eyes smoldering with hatred. Black ichor oozed from between its scales, and where the droplets hit the ground they hissed and steamed, and more Grimm pulled themselves up from the oily puddles. _Great, because the big one wasn't enough._

"Um," Penny said, as the great wings flapped. "Considering the damage to my... um... torso, it will be quite some time before I have enough power to fire again."

"Throw me!" Russel said, jabbing Yang in the shoulder. "I'm our only other really long-distance weapon."

Yang wanted to refuse—throwing someone she actually liked at the biggest Grimm she'd _ever seen_ was a horrible plan. But... he had a point. Nora's grenades couldn't reach that far. She crouched down, letting him put his feet on her hands, and hurled him as hard as she could as the monster swept past the shattered remains of the CCT. He soared upwards, feather-light, shrinking to a mere pinpoint in the sky.

The Wyvern lurched when he landed, letting out an ear-splitting shriek. It banked sideways and flicked its long neck, and a green speck went flying. Yang let out the breath she'd been holding—the fall wouldn't hurt him. Then she took off running, making for where she thought he might land. The monster was circling, shrieking in fury.

Dove grimaced. "We got its attention."

"Now we just gotta keep it!" Nora shouted cheerfully, vaulting over a broken column.

They met up with Russel again at the foot of the CCT. He was screaming curses, flapping his arms over his head, and when the Wyvern tried to swoop down on him he dove under a fallen tree. The monster lashed at it with its tail, sending the whole thing flying into the wall of a nearby building. Then it roared again.

"The heck did you do to it?!" Nora demanded as he sprinted past them, nearly colliding with Dove.

"How many options _are_ there?! It's like a hundred times my size!"

Yang opened her mouth to ask what that was supposed to mean. Then the Wyvern turned its head and she realized that one of its eyes had been slashed open and was oozing black ichor. The remaining two burned with rage and pain.

"Hi Kevin..." Russel said, giving it a tiny wave and backing up a step.

Dove made a disgruntled noise. _"Kevin?!"_

"We share a special bond."

The next shriek bowled all four of them over, and they had to scramble to avoid the head as it snapped forward. Yang landed on her back, staring up at the side of its throat just a few feet away. She could see the puckered red edges of its maw, the thick ropes of flesh that held its jaw together. Her foot connected with one of the massive fangs, and it let out a sharp _crack._ Then the head whipped around and she was airborne.

A bone mask the size of her childhood bedroom loomed towards her, filling the whole left side of her vision. She was dizzy and disoriented, but she managed to fire off her gauntlets and propel herself out of the way of the massive jaws. For a brief instant, she was bracing herself to hit the ground. Then the tail whipped towards her, almost too fast to _see,_ and her mind went blank.

It was like falling. She was moving upwards, but so blindingly fast that for a mad instant she was sure that gravity had been reversed, that she was about to plummet off the face of Remnant and into the storm above. Everything was spinning, her stomach felt like it was on fire, she couldn't _breathe._

Darkness closed around her. She wondered if she was passing through a cloud, until she spun around again and glimpsed the fiery eyes, the gaping jaws. Then everything was black and she was seeing snatches of a boiling sky through white teeth and pink ropes of Grimm flesh.

And then, another Grimm mask. Small, segmented, four-eyed and alien and terrible. A shock of black hair, hints of red from within the mask, a yawning crimson hole in the world. Yang wondered for a mad instant if she was looking into some kind of warped mirror—there was something intimately familiar about the way the hair curled around that face. Then it was gone, and she was falling into that tear in space.

For a brief instant it was dark except for distant pulses of red, like slow-motion lightning. The air was unnaturally still—or maybe it wasn't really air at all. Cold pressed in on her. Her chest convulsed, her lungs burned.

Then, impact. She landed on her side, showered in shards of brick, coughing and spluttering and struggling to draw breath. The wind had been knocked out of her. She rested her forehead on the pavement, gasping, and realized with a dull, creeping dread that she hadn't seen a mirror image at all.

"Mom...?"

"Yang!" Hands on her shoulders, dragging her upright. She looked up and saw that the hands belonged to Russel. Nora was peering over his shoulder, wide-eyed.

"I'm okay," she managed, in between bouts of coughing. She struggled back to her feet, wiggling her fingers and toes. Nothing broken—her aura had held. Her next breath came out as steam. The fire was welling up inside, fueled by the lash of the tail and by the woman she was less certain with every passing second that she'd actually _seen._

"It's coming back around," Dove warned. "You okay to walk?"

"Yep!" She bounced on her heels to prove it. "Get me close again and I think I might be able to crack that stupid mask." And if she hadn't quite been talking about the Wyvern, no one else had to know that.

"How'd you do that?" Russel asked. "With the portal thing?"

"No idea," she said honestly.

"But—"

"Not now, Russ," Dove snapped. "We've got maybe ten—"

A slab of concrete the size of a bus hurtled out of _nowhere_ and shattered against the side of the Grimm's head. It shrieked again, then veered to the side and clipped the edge of the dorm building with its tail. At least two or three rooms were obliterated in an instant, scattering debris across the courtyard. Yang thought she might have recognized one of her pajama tops in the rubble.

"Okay!" Russel waved his arms frantically. "Understand that I am _not_ complaining, but what's with the spontaneous teleportation and telekinesis?!"

"Not sure about the teleporting," Nora said, "But..." She pointed to where the rubble from the dorm was starting to move, rising into the air and then drifting in a lazy orbit. They were all glowing a distinctive shade of purple—Professor Goodwitch had arrived.

* * *

At first, the disturbance in the clouds was subtle. Ren wouldn't have noticed, but Sky spotted it—maybe with his eyes and maybe with his semblance—pointing to a spot where the blackness of the afternoon sky was tinted green. Rain streaked down, then turned to hail, then thawed back into a downpour so thick that it was hard to breathe. For a while they walked towards the heart of the unnatural storm, having to squint to see it.

Then it wasn't subtle at all. Lightning flashed down once, twice, three times in the same few blocks. They all broke into a run, with Ruby only barely holding herself back from rushing on ahead. She would have done it, ignoring Ozpin's warning, except that sometimes the disturbance would fade and it was always Sky who found it again. So they stayed together, drawing closer, and soon they found other signs.

Well, the word signs was a bit misleading. It implied that they had been placed there intentionally, and that they were the sorts of things you might miss if you weren't paying attention. Some walls were covered over with hoarfrost, others charred black. In places the asphalt had melted into slag. Boiling water pooled on the surface of the street, bubbling and hissing and smelling like sulfur.

"This... this is Pyrrha, right?" Ruby said, picking her way carefully between the molten puddles—which where evenly spaced, following a pattern that looked disturbingly like footsteps.

Ozpin nodded. "I doubt any of this was done intentionally."

Ruby swallowed nervously. "I guess we're not gonna see the other one coming, if she has more control."

"I'll know," Sky said. Paused. "I mean, I think I will. Kinda hard to miss."

Ren opened his mouth to say something. Then he was on his back, staring up at the clouds, his ears ringing. He blinked, twice, wiggled his toes. That seemed to work fine, though there were pins and needles running up and down his legs. He sat up.

"What..." There, about thirty feet away, a shop front had disappeared. In its place was a burnt-out husk, bits of partially melted glass scattered all over the road, and the charred remains of a wooden door.

_Lightning._

Ren snapped his fingers next to his ear. The ringing seemed to be going away. He got back to his feet at about the same time Ruby did. Ozpin was already up, while Sky was still staring at the destroyed shop front with wide eyes.

"Did we just... just..."

"Pyrrha must be close," Ruby said, and then scattered. The petals she left in her wake fell to the ground, going soggy and limp and, in a few cases, curling up and blackening when they touched the heated glass. Ren heaved a sigh and looked up. The disturbance seemed to be right over their heads.

"Pyrrha!" Ruby shouted, from somewhere to his left. "Hello? It's us!"

Ren exchanged a look with Sky—his partner was still bug-eyed and trembling—then cupped his hands to his mouth and copied her. "Pyrrha!"

Then, all of a sudden, Ruby stopped shouting. There was a muffled _crack._ Ren took off running, ducking down an alley and then coming out on the other side to find Pyrrha standing with her hands over her mouth. Ruby was fine. The wall behind her was not. Some of the brick had cracked, and judging by the way it was blackened there had been another—though thankfully much _smaller—_ bolt of electricity.

"Miss Nikos—" Ozpin started.

Ruby cut him off. "I'm so glad you're okay! Or, um... the street is kinda melted, but the city's full of Grimm so it was bound to get a little dinged up anyway."

Pyrrha took a step back, putting both hands behind her back. Smoke curled up from her palms, and ice crept out around her feet.

"Don't come any closer," she warned, as the ice hit one of the patches of melted asphalt and erupted into a plume of steam. "I can't..."

"The power is tied to your emotional state," Ozpin told her. "Try to take deep breaths—"

"I _am!"_ Another arc of electricity, a sharp crack. The smell of ozone filled the air. A dark mark was left on the ground near Ozpin's feet. Pyrrha squeezed her eyes shut. "It's not safe."

"I can help," Ren said softly, taking a small step towards her. "Is that okay?"

She hesitated. Her eyes opened again, roving over his face and taking in his outstretched hand. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't," he promised. "I still have plenty of aura. I'll back away if it isn't working."

Pyrrha swallowed, then leaned forward and brushed her hand against his. It was like touching a metal railing that had been in the sun all day. He let calmness drape over her, watched as her shoulders loosened. She slumped forward, then caught herself on his shoulder. The rain eased back a fraction, though it was still pouring so hard that they all might as well have been swimming.

"Thank you."

Ruby jumped on both of them, landing with one arm draped over Pyrrha and the other grabbing a fistful of Ren's sleeve, her feet dangling a few inches off the ground. He chuckled a little—it didn't happen often, but sometimes she reminded him rather strongly of Nora.

"I don't wish to interrupt, but I'm afraid we don't have time to spare."

They stepped apart. Ren turned to look to Ozpin for direction, since he'd lost all sense of where they had been before Pyrrha ran off. A sudden gust of wind slapped him in the face, driving freezing rain into his eyes. He threw both arms over his head, hunching over as he waited for it to pass. There was a flash of light that he could see even with his field of vision mostly obscured, and then mere heartbeats later a great rumbling of thunder.

The wind slackened off, and he straightened up. "We'd best get to the boat," Ozpin decided.

"Um..." Ruby pointed at the sky. "Isn't that gonna be a problem?"

Ozpin thought about it for a moment. "I might be willing to risk it if your Uncle wasn't riding with us." His mouth quirked a little, almost like he was hiding a smile, though Ren had no idea why. "You are correct. We'll have to go by land until we can get out of this storm... perhaps we can commandeer a vehicle."

They all moved to go, until Ren realized that Sky had gone stock still and was staring fixedly towards the southeast. He gave his shoulder a small nudge.

"That lightning wasn't natural," Sky said quietly, tilting his head back to stare at the clouds. Water streamed down his face, dripping from his chin and from sodden locks of hair. It took Ren a second to get it, and when he did his chest tightened. He turned to stare in the same direction, but all he could see was the storm.

"Move!" Ozpin shouted. They bolted, floundering as they passed through a street that had flooded up to their ankles. Pyrrha floated above it, wind whipping through her hair and sending it swirling behind her like a flag. Ruby scattered, reforming on the other side and bouncing anxiously up and down. The rest of them had to plow through.

Lightning struck ground about sixty feet away, perilously close to the pool of water they were standing in. Ren felt his legs tingle. Then another bolt, to their left this time, farther away.

"It's her!" Sky shouted. He tripped over something, flailed in the shallow water. Ren hauled him back upright, lending him just the barest touch of calm. Yet another flash of brilliant white—in front of them, close enough that Ruby stumbled and clamped her hands over her ears.

 _She's playing with us._ It was like a cat letting a mouse run a few feet away before batting it back with one paw, driving it mad with panic.

They crossed out of the flooded street and sprinted down an alleyway. Water poured from gutters high above and into grilles in the street. Then there was a roar, deep and all-consuming, and the other end of the alley burst into flames that rose fifteen feet into the air. A wave of heat rolled towards them. Pyrrha rushed forward, thrusting out her hand. Ice grew up from the walls of the alley, growing into the heart of the fire and extinguishing it.

"There's not much point."

Sky whimpered and threw his arms up over his head at the sound of the voice. It was low, silky, coming from somewhere above them. Ren craned his neck but saw nothing—just endless driving rain and livid black clouds. Ozpin led them to the left, this time down a wider street. Another turn, mostly at random, and Ruby skidded to a sudden halt. There was someone standing there, right in the middle of the road. Her dark hair flowed around her, caught in a localized gust of wind. She had turned her head so that they saw her in profile—a small, straight nose, a sharp chin, a mocking smile and one eye the color of a smoldering ember.

Ren had to grab Sky's shoulder to keep him from tripping over himself. He stopped, still trembling, and leveled his axe at her. She didn't seem to notice—she was staring directly at Pyrrha, now, her head turned to face them properly.

"You can't run away. Can't hide." Fire started in the palms of her hands, curling up over her forearms and crackling merrily despite the downpour.

Pyrrha stepped forward so that she was partially in front of Ruby. "I know. You're not going to give up."

The woman laughed. "True, but that hardly means you _can't_ hide from me. I'll admit I'm not omniscient." She grinned, and now the flames were dancing in her eyes, forming twin wings. "You can hide from me—not from this. It wasn't meant to be split up."

Another flash of lightning knocked over a lamppost a few dozen yards away, sending up a shower of sparks. It was impossible to tell which of the two of them had caused it. Ren wasn't even sure if Pyrrha herself knew.

"You feel it, don't you?" She took a step forward, and the rain hissed as it struck her bare shoulders. "That hunger, twisting you up inside? It doesn't get any better."

Pyrrha stiffened, but said nothing.

"I'm never going to stop hunting you, and you're not going to run." She smiled. It was almost apologetic, but there was a gleam in her eyes that was somewhere between greed and desperation.

"I won't let you take it," Pyrrha said, her voice perfectly steady. Her hand rose up in front of her—an open palm was now a bigger threat than the barrel of a gun.

"Of course not." The smile turned razor sharp, and flames began to spread along either side of the road, licking up the faces of the buildings. She tossed her head, her black hair falling behind her in a languid wave. "You're about to lose another student, Ozpin. For shame."

Ren had been backing up steadily the whole time she was talking, bringing Ruby with him by gripping her hood in one fist. Sky hadn't needed any prompting. When the fight first broke out, he was glad he had—a wave of fire filled the entire street. He took one searing breath, and the next was so frigid that he gasped. The pavement and the walls of the buildings around them all cracked and splintered from the sudden change in temperature. A gust of wind lifted him off his feet. He hit the ground, rolled, got tangled up with Sky and Ruby and scrabbled for purchase on the icy asphalt.

When he managed to look up, both Pyrrha and the other Maiden were airborne. Ruby grabbed his arm and shook it. "Oh my god! I've seen her before!"

"What?!" Sky hissed, struggling to his feet. "How do you not notice that?"

"She wasn't _levitating_ then!"

"Get out of here!" Ozpin snapped, deflecting a dozen shards of obsidian that had exploded out from the Maiden's palm. "You'll do more harm than—"

Pyrrha slashed her hand out. More fire bloomed into being, washing over the Headmaster. Ren was driven to his knees, coughing as his lungs began to burn. "Pyrrha, what—" Ruby croaked. A blast of wind knocked her into the side of a building. Pyrrha didn't even react when the other Maiden moved to drive a spike of obsidian into her chest. Ozpin did—he threw his cane, knocking it off-course at the last instant.

Pyrrha seemed to realize what was going on at the same time as the others did. She stiffened, her head whipping around. "Show yourself!"

Sky paled. "Where's the illusionist?"

"You guys find her!" Ruby shouted. "I'll stay with Pyrrha!"

"Miss Rose—" Ozpin started to say, but then there was a blast of wind filled with shards of ice. He was driven to his knees, his hands thrown over his head. Ruby shielded her face with one arm. Pyrrha was lashing out indiscriminately now, unable to see either friend or foe. Alternating fronts of heat and cold rolled off her. One instant, Ren could feel his hair freezing into clumps. The next, he'd been baked dry and was struggling to draw breath.

"There!" Sky pointed. Ren caught only a brief flash of green, but he charged anyway. She came out to meet them. A slash with what looked like some kind of sickle was aimed towards Sky's face, but he knocked it aside with his halberd. Then, without any other preamble, he leapt at her and drove her to the ground, wrapping both arms around her neck.

He grunted as a sickle scraped along his cheek. Then she managed to roll them over so that she was on top of him, choking him. Ren rushed at her, slashing at her back with his gun, but then it was Sky he was attacking and her on the ground.

"Again!" Ren couldn't be sure if that had been an actual suggestion or another trick. He obeyed anyway—standing idly by would have felt infinitely worse. It turned out to be Sky the second time, too—but in the instant that the illusion was directed at him, his partner shouted, "Pyrrha, _go!"_

A streak of flame passed across the sky, tinting the scene a ruddy red. Pyrrha was hovering above them, both arms spread wide, one leg straight and the other bent at the knee. The rain poured over her, and the clouds above had begun to form a sort of funnel pointing towards the two Maidens. She stared at them for a moment, her eyes wide and green and fearful. Then they hardened, and she reached out and pulled at the winds around her, driving herself up and out over the city of Vale. The other Maiden followed, with Ozpin and Ruby trailing after them along the ground.

Ren and Sky remained, wrestling with the illusionist. She actually had gotten on top, now—or he thought so, anyway. Sky kicked Ren in the shin. She pried one of his hands off her shoulder, and he flailed at her. They rolled again, kicking up a gout of frozen water, spattering mud over their hair and clothes and getting it in their eyes. Ren hovered for a moment, waiting for an opening, feeling wary. Then Sky shouted something incoherent and let go of her, his eyes rolling with terror.

That had to be the real Sky. Ren snagged the wrist of the illusionist and drove one of his guns into her stomach. She stumbled, and then his weight brought the both of them down. More water flew everywhere. He got some in his mouth, spat it out again. Then he was lying on top of Sky, who was shaking his head frantically.

"Wait, stop—"

"My best friend is...?"

He didn't answer, so Ren hit him in the face and the illusionist was back. She snarled at him, and then he was drifting in an empty void. He groped for handholds, his neck craning backwards. There was nothing—only darkness, and pinpricks like stars burning a poisonous green. He cried out, but there was no sound. Only a faint keening, like ringing in his ears, growing louder. A shadow passed across the stars, coiling serpentine across his field of vision.

And then he was on his back in a puddle, staring at the clouds, gasping for breath. He sat up, found that Sky had latched onto the girl's ankle. He was screaming in terror, thrashing his legs wildly, but he wouldn't let go no matter how much she kicked him. Ren rushed over to help, but he couldn't shoot until he was sure which was which.

"Ruby's sister is...?" Neither of them said anything—Sky couldn't hear him. His mind raced. It was possible that she was showing the two of them struggling with their positions reversed and was only _pretending_ that Sky was trapped inside an illusion so as to explain why he wasn't answering the question—

_No time._

He aimed for the illusionist and shot twice. She swore and lurched sideways, and Sky's screams cut off abruptly. Ren grabbed one of her wrists, twisting it until she dropped the sickle in that hand. She hit him with the other one, dragging it along his shoulder. His aura held, but he had the sense it wouldn't last much longer. Sky's was already gone, judging by his bloody lip.

"Stop it!" Sky shouted, reaching up so that he could aim a punch at her stomach. _"Stop it!"_

"I'm your _conscience,_ you little murderer!" She grinned, red eyes flashing with malice, and he doubled up and started to scream again.

Ren felt her hand sliding out of his grip and tightened his hold. _If I'm holding onto her, she can't fool me so easily._

The void returned. He couldn't feel her hand anymore, and when he tried to tighten his grip he found he couldn't feel his _own_ hand, either. His whole body was numb, and the black shape was circling, drawing closer with every revolution. The humming was louder now, undulating from pitch to pitch, the yawning hole in the stars was surging towards him.

 _It's not real,_ he told himself, as the stars were blotted out. _Only a dream, only a dream, only a dream—_

And then it was gone, but he couldn't breathe. He jerked violently, lifting his head up and hacking and coughing and spitting out water. When he looked down, he saw that the puddle he was lying in had gone scarlet. Slowly, Ren sat up. He could still feel the illusionist's hand, but she'd stopped moving.

 _Another trick,_ he thought, keeping his hold tight. He tracked his gaze up her arm, over to her back. She was face-down in the water, like he had been, and she wasn't breathing.

"Sky?" he said, turning his head. "I don't think she can fool more than one person, do you see—"

Sky wasn't moving, either. He was on his back, chin tilted upwards, staring sightlessly at the storm. Ren lurched, landing painfully on one elbow, feeling more of the freezing water soak into his clothes. The water sloshed when he moved closer, dragging the illusionist behind him. He still couldn't let go of her—this was just the sort of thing she might show him to get him to release her. _Just a trick._

Ren closed his eyes, shutting out the image of his partner sprawled on the ground, mouth slightly open, bleeding sluggishly from a gash just under his chin. He couldn't trust his senses anymore. He knew his left hand was wrapped around the illusionist's wrist, that was all. Everything else was suspect. He would hold onto her, wait for someone else to find him, and they would confirm that he was restraining the still-struggling illusionist, and Sky was helping him, and...

He tipped forward and landed with a splash, his head knocking painfully against the asphalt. Everything felt faded, and it was so cold he could hardly feel the illusionist's wrist in his hand. It didn't matter—he just had to keep holding on.


	50. Covalent Bonds [11]

Russel stared up at the sky, wondering idly it was even possible for _this_ much to go _this_ wrong in such a short amount of time. There was a motherfucking _dragon_ circling around them like an oversized vulture, splattering Grimm everywhere. At the same time, the storm had gone from freezing hail to... to... he didn't even _know_ anymore. There was a lot of lightning involved, and the rain had mixed into sleet peppered with chunks of ice the size of his fist. This wasn't just Murphy's Law anymore, it _had_ to be hostile intent on the part of the universe.

"It's coming back around," Dove shouted, over the wind whipping through their hair and clothes and screaming against the shattered remains of the fourth-year dorms.

The swords orbiting Penny spun in a tight ring, and the space within began to glow. BRYN hit the deck, while Goodwitch just stepped to the side to give her room to aim. The resulting blast hit the dragon's chest, shearing through a bone plate and then flickering out. It shrieked, this time in pain rather than in rage, and began to spiral downwards. Black ichor rained down, steaming when it spattered against the ground. More Grimm began to rise from the dark stains. Goodwitch flicked her wrist, sending bits of rubble through the skulls of a half dozen Beowolves.

Penny's swords orbited her again, but she didn't look like she was aiming for another attack. "I seem to have lost pow—um."

"We've guessed about the robot thing," Russel said helpfully. "If that's what you're worried about."

She turned bright green and shuffled her feet. "I don't have enough power to do that again—several major capacitors were damaged by the rebar."

Goodwitch scowled. "Barty and Peter should be here by now."

Russel resisted the urge to blurt, _'Who?'_ and soon after realized that she was probably talking about their other professors. Oh, he was _so_ going to call Oobleck Barty for the rest of his natural existence.

Kevin roared.

...Which might not be that long, considering.

Then it was just overhead, its mouth and throat open wide, gliding sideways and slamming one wing into the dorm building. Another several rooms were knocked out, and the whole place shook violently. The eastern wall crumbled, collapsing like a house of cards with its supports knocked out. Russel hit the dirt as the great head shot by overhead. It banked, and the gust of wind from its wings drove him sideways onto the lawn next to Beacon's main pathway. He spat out dirt and grass and winced as he wiped partly-frozen muddy slush off his face.

"This isn't working," Dove grumbled. Russel had to crane his neck to even see anyone else—his leader was standing, as was Yang, though Nora was still in a sitting position trying to peel a piece of waterlogged notebook paper off her forehead. Penny seemed mostly fine aside from the dead arm and the hole in her chest. Which seemed to be a less serious set of injuries for her than for... literally anyone else.

Goodwitch, naturally, was upright and glaring. Not at them, for once, but at the Grimm Dragon that was just now circling back around, shrieking in fury and lashing at the main building with its tail. Her cape had darkened with water until it was almost black, and the bun at the back of her head was starting to come undone. If anything, that only made her look _scarier._ "Well," she huffed. "I don't suppose I or any of the rest of you are ever going to live this down."

Russel blinked. _What?_

"Follow me."

She led them in a run towards the ballroom. It was still standing, though one strike from Kevin's tail had knocked out several supporting columns and the rain was already getting in through the resulting gap. "Get in. I'll drive it through the front wall. As soon as that happens, the rest of you bring the roof down."

Goodwitch adjusted her glasses, looking down at them through the lenses. "I trust the four of you will find a way to make that happen."

Russel gaped at her for a second, and before he rebooted to the point that he could make any kind of _response_ to that, she was already gone. Dove made some vague, incoherent noises.

"Well," Nora said, clapping her hands together. "I call that one!" She pointed to the furthest column to the left.

Yang blinked a few times. "Did that just..."

"Yep!" Nora grabbed her arm and pulled her over to another column. "You do this one."

"Wait!" Dove hung his head. "That's... you should break the one next to it."

Everyone stared at him. Except Penny, who had cheerfully walked over to the column he'd indicated and looked to be calculating how much force she'd need to bring it down.

"There's only five of us and Russel and I will probably have to team up on one of them," he said, looking pained. "So we can only do two on each side."

More stares.

"And I'm assuming the Grimm will collapse that entire wall." Dove pointed to the far side of the room. "Plus about three or four columns on each side. That still leaves four or five more. We could _try_ breaking more than one, but then the timing gets difficult and this place is less than sturdy as it _is,_ so we might just bring the roof down on ourselves instead. But I'm almost sure that two columns can't support this entire side of the roof."

Russel clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the sudden attack of snickers. Dove glared at him. "What?"

"I just figured out why you're on our team!"

"Shut up."

"You know how to destroy buildings! You've _studied_ this, haven't you?"

"I know how _gravity works,_ Russel! It's not like I'm an architect!"

"Shh." He patted his leader on the shoulder and approached the column opposite where they'd come in. That would leave, as Dove had said, about two or three on either side of the room, plus the wall nearest them. Hopefully that wouldn't be enough for the building to stay standing.

"So, glorious leader," he said, tapping the column he and Dove had chosen as their victim. "How do we destroy this thing? 'Cause I think it's gonna take a while if we just chop at it like a tree."

None of the other three were moving just yet—apart from some brief tapping from Yang and Nora to size the things up, they were apparently confident they could bring them down in one hit. That was pretty awesome, in his humble opinion.

Dove heaved a sigh. "I'll try and carve out a hollow, you stab it with gravity Dust, the middle folds in on itself."

Russel felt his face light up. "Oh gods, we _are_ going to blow up Beacon!"

"No! No, we are not! This is a controlled demolition of a single building with _no_ fire Dust involved!"

"It's still using Dust, it counts!"

"Damn it, Russ—"

Another roar from Kevin, coming from somewhere close. Both of them shut up. Dove hacked at the pillar with his sword, grunting with each blow, until he'd carved out a notch going about halfway through. Russel twisted his left dagger and grinned when it started glowing a sinister indigo color. He lined up the shot. Then they waited, hearing their breathing, for several long seconds.

"Listen," Dove said, raising his voice so the other three could hear. "As soon as this goes off—Penny? You take the left wing. Yang, Nora? The right. Russel and I will go for the eyes."

A low whistle was all the warning they got before the opposite wall exploded into plaster and wooden shrapnel. Russel drove his dagger into the pillar, watching in fascination as it crumpled like a piece of paper. Then he leapt out through one of the windows. Shattered glass rained down, and the whole place shook. There was an almighty crack, a groan as the building struggled to support itself, and finally a long and sustained rumbling as the ballroom gave up the ghost and collapsed. Russel clamped both hands over his ears.

Then he heard Kevin shriek. The sound of collapse stopped, only to be replaced by the shifting of debris and angry roars. Russel rolled to his feet, took in the scene—the thing was half-buried in what was left of the ballroom, with only its scaly hind legs and tail sticking out. Goodwitch was nowhere to be seen, but some of the rubble was glowing purple and resisting any attempt by the monster to move it.

The tail swept sideways. Russel yelped and leapt into the air, soaring up and onto the heap of rubble. Dove took a glancing hit from it as he tried to jump over, which sent him pinwheeling into the ground. He got up again, staggering slightly, and Russel gave him a hand up.

From there they walked across the shattered roof. It was hard going—everything was moving constantly, and he kept tripping over bits of wood and feeling foot-long splinters bouncing off his aura. Then they arrived at the head. It was already starting to get loose, its five remaining eyes glowing with fury. Russel jumped over it, landing on the side that he'd already damaged earlier. He'd used fire Dust the first time, scorching the flesh around the socket, but it hadn't died.

Well. Here was his second chance. He tried ice, and buried his arm up to the elbow. There were probably grosser things to be buried up to the elbow in than a Grimm's eye, but he couldn't actually think of any at the moment. Ichor ran down his arm, soaking his vest and his pants and hissing as it came into contact with the air. It would evaporate—still, he was definitely washing all this later. Thoroughly. He'd burn it in a heartbeat, but he couldn't replace it if he did.

Then he felt his dagger scrape against bone, and activated the Dust. An array of frozen spikes burst from the empty socket. The monster screeched and yanked its head up, freeing its head and part of its neck from the rubble. Russel was thrown up and into the air, and judging by the swearing he heard from the other side of the head, Dove was also along for the ride.

Of course, their job wasn't the really important one. As he plunged his dagger into the monster's last and largest right eye, he glanced around and saw Yang and Nora working in concert. Yang pulled the wing back, using her entire body as leverage, while Nora slammed her hammer into the joint again and again. Finally there was a mighty _pop,_ and Russel could see the bulge of a bone slipping out of place.

If it had been angry before, it was _enraged_ now. Its head whipped around just as Russel activated the Dust in his dagger—lightning this time, though that didn't seem to do much to the monster either—and he was thrown off and into the pile of rubble. He landed gently. Dove didn't. He came down on one leg, cried out, then collapsed onto his side.

_Crap._ Russel vaulted over the rest of the roof and landed next to Dove. Before he could do much of anything, a gout of ichor came down and spattered on the ground a few feet away. A creep and four Beowolves pulled free of the mess, sniffing the air hungrily.

Russel grabbed Dove's arm and hauled him upright. His left foot was bending in a nauseating sort of way, and he wisely didn't even _try_ to put weight on it. Russel could sorta carry him, but not while moving faster than a hobble.

"Um..." he said. A Beowolf rushed at him and he stuck a dagger through its throat. "Is anyone done maiming that thing? We could use some help."

He glanced up and saw Penny leaping from the monster's shoulder. She had ignored the joint between wing and body, choosing instead to shred the membrane to ribbons. Her good arm was holding the bad one to her chest, leaving her with just the swords, but... honestly, that was barely an inconvenience.

When she landed next to them, she grinned at him like they were playing some kind of fun game. "The Grimm is no longer flight-capable," she announced happily, as one of the floating swords cut through the Creep.

It roared again, shaking itself free of the last of the rubble. The tail came around. Russel braced himself for impact—

—and found himself fifteen feet in the air, suspended in a purple glow. Penny and Dove were next to him, and below them the tail was lashing frantically. Kevin shrieked, whipping its head back and forth. Dove had taken out all three of the eyes on his side, too. It was blind and its wings were crippled, but it was _still_ the size of the damn ballroom and very, very angry.

"Yang! Nora!" Goodwitch shouted. "Get over here!"

Russel did a double-take at the sound of Goodwitch calling someone by their _first name._ Apparently the others felt the same, because they came at once. That left the five of them in a ragged circle. She put Russel and Penny down, but kept Dove floating above their heads to spare his ankle.

"I'm sure there's a way to cut through that creature's hide, but we don't have the luxury of time to experiment. We're going to have to be a little more clever than that."

"Well, we broke its wings," Nora said. "So... push it off a cliff?"

Russel made eye-contact with Yang, and both of them broke out into huge, evil grins. Dove glared down at them, as if daring them to laugh.

Goodwitch just nodded. "Exactly, Miss Valkyrie."

A lamppost rose into the air and drove itself into Kevin's side. It stumbled, shrieked in outrage, and started to chase them. Its run was even more disturbing than its flight—it moved with a strange, loping gate, using its hind legs and the wing Penny had slashed up. The other dragged behind it, crashing into the side of the cafeteria and bringing down an entire wall. Its tail lashed into the main building, collapsing a place he was pretty sure corresponded to the arena. Goodwitch muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like the word _bastard._ Yeah, that had been her classroom.

Then there was no more time for speculation—the thing was charging at them like a bull the size of a mountain, and it was a _lot_ faster than it had any right to be. Russel yelped and took off in a sprint, ending up neck and neck with Yang. It couldn't see, but it was certainly sensing them _somehow—_ maybe it could hear them, or smell negative emotion.

The cliffs loomed ahead of them. They kept running right up to the very edge, then whirled around. Kevin was only a few dozen yards behind and covered the distance in three long bounds. Then its good wing came down on empty air and it lurched forward. It didn't fall, though—it dug its claws into the cliffside, and its tail curled around a clump of trees to help steady it.

Goodwitch straightened up. Dove was deposited gently on the ground. At the same time, tree after tree that the tail was wrapped around glowed purple, rose into the air, and shot towards the monster like javelins. One struck the back of its neck, shattering into a thousand splinters longer than his daggers. Another hit the wounded wing joint, then the center of its back, then one of its ankles. It stumbled, shifted forwards. The remaining trees supporting it toppled, and it lurched forward.

Nora grinned, wound up her hammer, and slammed it into one of the great legs. Yang drove both fists into the other and heaved. Another tree, this time smashing against the base of its tail. It slid forward, overbalanced, and plummeted over the cliff's edge.

It didn't die, obviously. They could still hear it roaring in rage and scrabbling at the side of the cliff. But with one wing joint out of its socket, it couldn't climb that well—all it was really accomplishing was doing some pretty epic damage to the cliff face.

"We'll be back," Russel told it, in tones as patronizing as he could manage. "Just sit tight and don't go anywhere."

The answering roar made part of the cliff's edge crumble. If he'd been standing two feet closer, he probably would have ended up in the thing's mouth.

"Thrush," Goodwitch snapped. "Don't antagonize the monster."

"...Sorry."

She sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. "The five of you should go back to the airfield. Look for your friends, and do what you can to help evacuate civilians. I'll see what I can do about this... _creature."_

Russel blinked. "Wait, you're going to kill Kevin?"

Goodwitch gave him a _look._ "This is why we don't _name_ them, Mister Thrush."

* * *

The flow of refugees was starting to slow, _finally._ Cardin leaned back against a low stone wall that had been partially demolished by something, probably a Grimm, nad stretched his bad leg out in front of him. It was starting to heal, though damnably slowly. Jaune was sharing his semblance between him and Blake, and some of it was being used up on the cut on his arm.

He felt wrung out, like a cloth that had been twisted and twisted until it was starting to fray at the edges. Just... twice as exhausted as he'd ever been in his life, plus an exam and a few hundred suicide drills. That kind of tired. The sort of tired that meant that all four of them spoke in slurred mumbles, and were nodding off sitting up.

Blake was resting her head on Weiss' shoulder, which made him a little jealous—he wanted something or someone to use as a pillow badly enough to sell his firstborn. Jaune didn't count—the armor on his shoulders looked massively uncomfortable. Cardin tried to wrap his arms around his head and rest on those, but he banged the bridge of his nose on one of his bracers and soon abandoned the attempt.

"We should probably... beds," Jaune finished, a bit lamely. There was a murmur of agreement from Weiss, and Cardin grunted affirmative. Blake was fast asleep and didn't say a word. No one moved.

Then, _crack!_ Cardin jolted upright, banging his head against Jaune's as he did the exact same thing. Blake was alert in an instant, ears standing straight up, her eyes wide. Weiss just cursed under her breath and peered out through her eyelashes, looking about ready to murder someone for disturbing her.

It wasn't close, though. A flash of lightning lit up a wall of bulbous, roiling green-black cloud. Seconds later, there was another roar of thunder. Cardin stared at the storm for a moment, cocking his head to the side. It almost looked like...

Two gigantic columns descending from the sky. Both circling slowly, growing closer together, then erupting in flashes of lightning that arced from one to another. Even from this far away the wind was picking up, whipping against the glass window in font of them and sending a combination of freezing rain, sleet, and hail scattering in every direction. Cardin was suddenly very glad they were inside an airship—it had been grounded by the initial surge of Grimm, but since it was already in the safe zone it had been repurposed as a first aid area.

Through the great glass windows they watched the storm—which looked for all the world like _two_ storms, each trying to destroy the other. Sometimes the lightning crackled out in all directions like giant Tesla ball in the sky. At others it took on an oddly reddish hue, as though it was fire rather than electricity. He would have thought it was a blaze starting in some of the nearby buildings if it hadn't been raining like the end of the fucking world.

"There's no way that's natural," Weiss decided, after they'd been gawking at it for a few minutes. Blake put her head down again, and Weiss lay one arm over her shoulders. Cardin tried to come up with a clever way to mock them for it, but all he had was 'get a room,' and he'd used that one already. He was too tired for this.

Jaune yawned hugely, his tongue poking right out of his mouth. Sometimes Cardin could swear _he_ was the damn cat. "Well, I'm done. Drained. Dead battery. So no running towards it. Please?"

"I wasn't suggesting that we should," Weiss said, a touch defensively. "Just pointing out that something _caused_ that, and we're sharing a city with it."

"It's almost beautiful," Blake murmured. She was more asleep than awake, though that didn't mean she looked relaxed. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes glazed over, and she had started chewing on her fingernails. Probably something to do with the mass-murdering terrorist Weiss' sister had killed. In front of her. He was apparently _something_ to her, though Cardin had no idea what exactly.

Jaune hummed agreement. Cardin didn't. More lightning flashed, and there was a wave of flickering light. That was definitely fire, not electricity. And it was definitely happening in the pouring rain. It was ominous. Not natural, but also not the kind of man-made he was used to. Dust couldn't do that. Semblances had never been recorded doing that. It was... _wrong._

Still, it _did_ look pretty badass once he got past that weird vibe. The four of them gradually shifted closer and closer together. Weiss and Blake were on one side of Jaune, Cardin on the other, all shivering slightly despite the shelter from the elements and staring in open awe as the sky went from fighting itself to _devouring_ itself. Fantastic gouts of fire erupted out of the clouds—there was no calling it anything else, now—and the very earth and sky themselves were reacting. The air hummed with that latent electricity you got with storms, and he even imagined he could smell smoke. The earth shook in time with the thunder that proceeded every flash of lightning. At times it felt like someone was beating on a drum the size of a small village.

As they stared, the occasional arrivals of civilian transports taking people up into the Atlesian warship slowed to a bare trickle. People were mostly just waiting around, and the number of Hunters guarding the airfields had nearly doubled. Things were starting to get under control. At the same time, Cardin could feel strength ebbing back into his bad leg. They were all perking up, acting less like roadkill. It felt good, like he'd needed that confirmation that they were all still _alive_ before he could get over the fact that they'd _won,_ and without losing a single member.

Sun and Neptune showed up about fifteen minutes after the beginning of the freak storm. They'd been told to go back to the medship and wait, because their auras were pretty much gone and anyway there were hardly any civilians left who hadn't been evacuated. Both of them sat down on the other side of Blake and Weiss, watching the storm.

"Holy crap," Sun breathed, when a particularly vivid twist of lightning split the sky into five pieces, each looking jagged and warped.

Then they waited some more, while the great slash in Blake's side closed up with the help of her aura and Jaune's semblance. The trickle of refugees slowed to a halt. More people came into the medship to mill around and ask for news, as well as to inquire about what looked like a pair of hurricanes in a turf war. ABSW didn't bother moving. Cardin couldn't give less of a damn about that storm. He was done, he'd helped stop one deadly madman from entering the airfield. He couldn't be fucked with this other one, _especially_ if elemental powers were involved.

And speaking of elemental powers...

The only warning they got was the sounds of voices, muffled through the glass but still much more intelligible than you'd expect, considering. Then the door burst open and BRYN piled in. They looked filthy but unhurt—Yang had bits of brick in her hair and the entire left side of Russel's face was covered in plaster dust. Nora was giggling and saying something about not thinking it would be that easy to bring down a building.

"Hey!" Sun jumped to his feet and pointed. "Are you guys Brine?"

Dove groaned and put his head in his hands. "Oh, _no..."_

Nora stared at him. "What? We're _famous,_ how is that bad?"

He gave her a _look._ "Nora, when was the last time someone knew us by reputation and _wasn't_ at least as bad as we are?"

There was a moment of silence, during which Neptune, Weiss, and Blake all stared at Sun with varying levels of horror and he himself broke out into a wide, toothy grin. "No worries," he said, in the least reassuring tone Cardin had ever heard in his life. "I swear I'm a positive influence."

* * *

There was no fear once they rose above the streets of Vale. Only a rush of adrenaline, an exaltation and euphoria that made the tips of Pyrrha's fingers tingle. She felt like she'd been a rat in a maze, boxed in by a thousand cramped streets and alleyways and hallways and classrooms, and had finally crawled out into free, open air.

Then the wind struck her—a searing, serrated wind, full of shards of ice and chips of inky volcanic glass. It blasted her backwards, spinning end over end, and when she recovered she wasn't sure where she had started. Ozpin was down there, and she couldn't quite find room in herself to care about that, but Ruby was with him—and somewhere, she didn't have even the faintest clue anymore where, Ren and Sky as well.

Pyrrha held out both hands. It was an indescribable rush, not just letting the dam break but shattering it by her own choice. The next blast of air turned away, diverting up and over her and raining dark glass onto the streets below. Then she retaliated, and lightning flashed—it was so easy, just like drawing a path from the sky to her foe. The second it connected, there was light and heat and the intoxicating smell of ozone. This was it—this was what this power must be for. Protection.

She tugged again at the clouds. She didn't want lightning or wind or even hail—just more of whatever the storm had to give. More of the freezing water in the air, drenching her and making her feel alive. More of the rolling thunder, vibrating deep in her chest. _More. Everything._

The other woman laughed, with fire still dancing around her eyes. Pyrrha saw it, but she couldn't hear it over the storm, or the torrent of flame that poured towards her a second later. Her whole field of vision whited out. She spun, clenched her fists, and all the heat vanished. Water poured from her, sloughing off her arms and face, remnants of the ice she'd called up.

It was only then that she realized she was laughing, too. She couldn't be afraid like this, with the whole world shrunk to tiny pinprick Grimm and dollhouses and skyscrapers that barely came halfway to where she flew. The world was so tiny, so _fragile,_ and she felt like she could pick it up and cradle it in the palms of her hands.

Then there was another blast of wind from her opponent—not a gust but a driving, corkscrewing bullet, laden with shards of obsidian. It collided with Pyrrha's stomach despite her doing everything she could to divert it. She folded over like she'd just been punched and was driven backwards. Something solid collided with her back and gave out, again and again and again, and then at last she skidded to a halt, with one cheek resting on a shattered street and muddy rainwater soaking into her side.

She coughed, twice, then pushed herself onto her back. The sky roiled overhead, clouds coalescing into a malevolent point. It was slowly descending, like a finger reaching out to touch her forehead.

When she tried to stand, a blast of fire knocked her off her feet again. This time she landed on the sidewalk, face-down, with both legs in the street. A hand clasped around the back of her neck, and all of a sudden it was like she'd swallowed a hot coal. The empty void was gone, and in its place she was _boiling._

"You're thinking that at least you bought time," the Maiden said, as Pyrrha struggled to move. "You're thinking that this was some kind of noble sacrifice." The powers flexed instinctively, blasting both of them with a hail of ice shards the size and shape of needles.

"It isn't." The hand tightened, and the heat inside of her intensified. Her thoughts were scattered, feverish. "You want to kill me. It's gnawing at you, the emptiness where the other half should be. You'd rip my heart out with your bare hands if you weren't so _weak."_

The heat crested, ripping an agonized scream from her. She heard a crack, distant and small compared to the howling wind. The grip at the nape of her neck loosened just a fraction and she lurched away, kicking blindly and rolling to the side. Her attacker snarled in disgust.

Even as the agonizing burning stopped, the cold rushed back in. The void yawned wider than ever by comparison, the coal replaced by a starless chunk of the night sky. It was worse, _so much worse,_ and she thought for an instant that she should stay still, let that hand come down again if it meant she would be _whole._

Something was digging into her shoulder. She turned and found a spent bullet bent, deformed by its impact with something solid. The crack, her attacker's momentary distraction...

Pyrrha scrambled to her feet, her nose passing inches from the other woman's searing fingertips. She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, and reached up towards the sky that had turned midnight-dark even in the middle of the afternoon.

She herself didn't feel much. Tingling at her fingertips and toes, a ringing in her ears, that _wonderful_ static smell. When she opened her eyes again the other Maiden was several hundred feet away, bracing herself against a wall and snarling. It was an inhuman expression—she realized in an instant that she wasn't really looking at a person anymore but some kind of animal, a wolf that had been starved and starved until it would have eaten its own pack.

Another _crack._ This time Ruby's bullet missed, shattering the brick facade a few feet away from the other Maiden. The two of them clashed again, still on the ground. Then the asphalt turned into a slick, bubbling soup and they had to rise above it, circling higher and higher, blasting at one another with ice and fire and the bolts of lightning that were incubating in the clouds above.

Pyrrha lost track of time. She lost track of herself, too—that strange widening of her senses had returned. She was suspended, a mere speck against that dark sky, pulling it towards herself. Her body felt far away, unimportant except as the thing she needed to defend, miniscule compared to the storm she commanded.

The rifle shots were a constant background noise. Usually they missed—the air currents around the two Maidens were nothing natural, hellish to aim against. Even so, they kept coming. And Pyrrha kept waiting.

Then, it happened. A crack, and the bullet found one of the tunnels of wind that their fight had created, curving as it went and colliding with the other Maiden's thigh. She lurched, turned partway around, and Pyrrha struck. She let loose everything she had, and now she wasn't just letting the power free but actively _pushing_ it. Lightning arced from cloud to woman to street and back again, lighting up all of downtown Vale. The woman disrupted it, sending it curving towards a nearby skyscraper and blasting away half the lower floors. It shook, but didn't fall.

Pyrrha used the time to dive in close. She didn't touch her—not with the memory of that searing heat still with her. She just hovered there, smelling burning hair and knowing that the woman's aura was gone. She attacked again, wind and rain and ice this time, but as usual the other Maiden blocked them. She'd had this curse far longer, knew how to bend and manipulate it.

There was a signpost behind her, about thirty feet away. With the last of her aura, Pyrrha reached out and pulled. It spun halfway around as was ripped out of the ground, like a knife thrown at a dartboard, and four feet of metal erupted from her enemy's chest. Those fiery eyes went wide with shock, the mouth opened—and she dropped like a stone, landing with a splash in one of the spreading puddles on the street.

Pyrrha dropped down next to her, crouching in the same water, watching it turn cloudy red. Maybe she could have helped—it was next to impossible that she could have stopped the bleeding, let alone dealt with whatever internal injuries she'd caused, but she could have _tried._ She didn't. She just crouched there, waiting, wanting her to go still but not quite enough of a monster yet to strike a fallen opponent. Or, maybe, not so mindlessly hungry that she couldn't wait a few more moments.

Then, finally, the ragged wheezing stopped. She swallowed, reaching out towards the body, torn between anticipation and dread. It began to flake away, fiery red just like the woman's eyes, drawn at last to join its other half. Pyrrha closed her eyes, feeling the empty pit in her stomach easing, then vanishing altogether.

In its absence, other things came back to her. She wondered where Ozpin had gone. She wondered whether Ren and Sky were still fighting the illusionist, and how long she'd been up in the air. She realized with a sudden wrench that she'd just _killed_ someone, and that Ruby had very probably been watching through her scope.

It took her that long to give more than a passing thought to the building the dead Maiden had struck—and to wonder why she'd chosen that one. Pyrrha jerked back, rising fifteen feet in the air and whirling around. She could see it from here, and sagged with relief when she saw that it was listing rather alarmingly to the left, but hadn't yet fallen. Her flight was wobbly with exhaustion, drained entirely of the exhilaration she'd felt earlier.

Ruby was waving at her from the highest floor, her scythe over her shoulder in rifle form, her hood up and dripping from the rain. She wasn't smiling.

"Hey," she said, voice small.

Pyrrha settled on the roof with her, not quite daring to meet her eyes. That meant she was entirely unprepared when she was seized in a hug, and in her surprise she very nearly stepped off the edge of the building. After several seconds, she had the presence of mind to return the gesture.

"So, the Maiden..."

Pyrrha swallowed. "Dead," she admitted.

Ruby nodded into her shoulder. "Yeah. I kinda figured, but..."

"I'm sor—" Ruby squeezed her a little tighter, cutting her off.

"I'm glad you're okay."

She wasn't sure she was, but now seemed like a bad time to mention that. Instead she just picked her partner up and leapt off the roof, using the wind to alight gently on the pavement about thirty stories below.

They found Ozpin a few minutes later, his cane nowhere to be seen. He seemed to know what had happened the moment he met her eyes.

"I am sorry, Miss Nikos, that it had to come to this. But the blame is mine, and hers. Never yours."

They staggered together towards where they'd first encountered the other Maiden. It wasn't raining so hard, now—only a light drizzle, much warmer than the freezing downpour of only minutes ago. The clouds had gone from green-black to silvery grey, and here and there beams of sunlight were breaking through.

There was no one in the street they'd come from, but Pyrrha could see signs of a scuffle—mud was streaked partway up a building where someone had kicked at the ground. They turned the corner.

Stillness. There was no sound but the slow and steady whispering of rain pouring into storm drains. No movement besides the small eddies and currents in the water. It was stained faintly pink, though the color was steadily fading. A woman Pyrrha didn't recognize lay face-down in the water. Ren was gripping her wrist, lying on his stomach, his head tilted so that his nose was out of the water. His face had gone milky pale, and his lips were turning purple. Sky was on his back, eyes wide open.

Pyrrha landed on her knees with a nasty jerk, the puddle beneath her crusting over with ice. Ruby scattered apart and reformed between their two teammates, grabbing Ren's elbow and putting a hand on Sky's chest. Then she groped for his wrist. Moved to touch his throat and recoiled with a strangled sound when she saw the cut there—it was little more than a nick, and it wasn't bleeding anymore. Gently, she brushed his eyes closed with her thumb.

Ozpin moved forward. He didn't bother to check on Sky—instead he knelt in front of Ren and checked his pulse.

"He's alive," he said, picking him up and off the ground. He had to pry Ren's fingers off the girl's wrist. "We need to get him someplace warm."

He didn't say anything about Sky—it was quite obvious that he wasn't. Ruby picked him up anyway. Her hood had fallen over her eyes, so it was almost impossible to make out her expression. She didn't make so much as a sound as she stood, arms straining with the weight of him and his armor and the water that had soaked through his clothing.

They started towards the airfield, and Ozpin soon pulled ahead of them. He was moving as though Ren weighed nothing at all. Neither of them would be able to keep up with that pace, which was for the best—the sooner Ren got someplace warm, the better.

Pyrrha reached out and grabbed hold of Ruby's sleeve, her eyes locked on Ren as he and Ozpin disappeared from view. She couldn't see much of Sky, and she focused on the vivid red cloak so that she wouldn't stare at his boots and think about him tapping counter-rhythms whenever someone drummed their fingers, or the way he'd started to flourish his axe just like Ruby did her scythe, or the look of blank terror that had been frozen on his face. She nearly doubled over, then, as a caustic, acidic feeling welled up in the pit of her stomach.

She wanted it to be worse than that hollow void, the emptiness that killing the other Maiden had eased. It wasn't.


	51. Covalent Bonds [12]

It wasn't Sky's memorial, not exactly. It was dedicated to all the fallen, including many civilians and a few students from other schools. One of Ermine hadn't made it, the one with the tattoos. It made Nora a little mad that he was being honored with the same statue as everyone else. Maybe that was why she had trouble thinking of it as anything except Sky's memorial. Maybe that was just the weight of Ren's head on her shoulder.

All eleven of them were in a big clump, sitting in the same row of uncomfortable plastic chairs as they watched the dedication of the memorial. They didn't really have to be there, but everyone else was going and the general agreement was that it would be good for the Raspberries to get some fresh air. ABSW was the only one even sort of sitting in neat team order, with Jaune on one end giving Pyrrha's shoulder an occasional painfully awkward pat. Then came Ruby, with Yang on her other side wrapping her a one-armed hug. Ren was bracketed between her and Nora. Dove and Russel sat to their right, rigid and radiating discomfort.

There was a lot of that going around.

A speech concluded. Nora had zoned out in the first few minutes—it had been a council member talking, thanking Beacon for its dedication and sacrifice with canned phrases and spit-polished sympathy. She'd spent the whole thing watching the back of Ren's head, occasionally running a hand through it.

Then, Ozpin stood up and cleared his throat. Nora glanced up. He looked more haggard than he usually did. His cane wasn't just for show, today—he leaned on it almost imperceptibly as he approached the podium.

"I'm afraid I don't have any remarks prepared," he said, resting his free hand on the surface of the podium. "There were stolen moments when I tried to write myself notes, but... I could never bring myself to put pen to paper."

Silence from the assembled crowd. Nora had trouble believing that he _had_ written the welcoming speech, if she was being honest.

Ozpin sighed, turning his head to scan the crowd. "I shall be frank. The attack on Vale was a horrible tragedy, and one whose effects we will be feeling for a long, long time. I will say this much—we have determined _conclusively_ that the individuals in Atlesian armor that were shown sabotaging the stadium were not involved with the military in any capacity. Their uniforms were stolen from two fallen officers."

A pause, while he let that sink in. "As important as it is to understand the gravity of what we have just been through, I believe it is equally important to acknowledge that it could have been far, _far_ worse, if not for the actions of many students and teachers."

He turned to his right, where Goodwitch, Port, and Oobleck were standing. Then he lowered himself into a deep bow. Nora could see one of his legs shaking. "I have never been more proud of the staff of this institution than I am in the wake of this attack. Each and every one of them, even those not present at today's dedication, acted selflessly and courageously to protect their students. And Glynda, I would like to thank you personally—without your aid, we would never have been able to seal the breach so quickly."

She inclined her head but didn't smile.

"We would also still be dealing with a bit of a Dragon problem," he added, a little wryly. "And, naturally, this dedication would be taking place in a somewhat less hospitable environment." He gestured at the buildings that could be seen in the distance, as if to indicate that they were currently standing.

"I would also like to thank team Coffee." There was a startled noise from somewhere nearer to the front, where the second-years were sitting. "They were instrumental to the evacuation of civilians and fellow students from the Amity Coliseum, and later in the protection of those gathered at Beacon's airfield. No one asked them for help—I doubt the crowd had the presence of mind. They acted independently, with the initiative and heroism that makes true Huntsmen and Huntresses."

"They then proceeded to rally other students behind them, and under the guidance of the Atlesian military, they formed a perimeter around the airfield and began rescuing civilians." He bowed again, just as deeply. Nora thought she could see a bead of sweat standing out on his forehead.

"I'm sure the council will be calling on you to give you something rather more impressive than an old man's congratulations—don't look so horrified, Miss Scarlatina, I can assure you that it is well-deserved." There were a few chuckles from the audience.

Ozpin's expression grew serious again. He spread his hands on the podium, cleared his throat. "Now... I have something of a confession to make." His mouth twitched up into a small, melancholic half-smile. "Your partner assignment is not so random as it appears."

Mutters broke out. Other people were talking animatedly, but all Nora could do was _stare—_ not at her own team, but at ABSW. Jaune was glaring at the headmaster in mute betrayal, while Cardin looked like he was holding back a laugh. Weiss and Blake just raised identical, skeptical eyebrows.

"I do my best to nudge each student towards someone with whom I believe they can work well," the Headmaster continued. Blake's eyebrow ticked up another notch. "Yet, someone that will challenge them and help them to grow in new ways."

There was a moment of profound silence. Nora started to wonder if he'd been lying about not preparing this.

"However." The half-smile turned into a full one. It was still a little sad, but his eyes twinkled with humor. "Some of this year's assignments... got away from me, so to speak." Cardin snorted.

Ozpin leaned back a little, taking a deep, steadying breath. "I'm sure you're all wondering what any of this has to do with the tragedy this monument represents." His gaze swept over the crowd. "Well. Firstly, to team Brine."

Nora jumped a little in her seat, then shared a panicked look with Dove. He shrugged back.

"No offense meant," the Headmaster said, winking in their direction, "but I would never deliberately inflict the four of you on our faculty."

Some laughs, with Russel the loudest among them. Dove buried his head in his hands.

The Headmaster chuckled. "This marks the first time in my career that I have ever commended my students for demolishing a large portion of the school building. I dearly hope that it is also the last."

More laughs. Ren's mouth twitched up into a tiny, frail little smile, and Nora broke out in a huge grin in response.

Ozpin sobered up a little, straightening his back and looking over each of their faces, one by one. "All jokes aside. The four of you, along with Atlas' Penny Polendina and Professor Goodwitch—" he inclined his head to her again, "—helped fight off a monster that has likely been incubating in this mountain range for centuries, a creature many grown Huntsmen and Huntresses would hesitate to engage. And, in doing so, you defended the Atlesian Dreadnaught and all its passengers."

Nora was pretty sure she was turning maroon right now. She watched, her mouth falling slightly open, as the Headmaster drew himself into a third bow. His bad leg shook a little, and then he rose again with the ghost of a grimace. It was gone a moment later, replaced by a proud, almost grandfatherly smile.

"To Alabaster." There was a little jolt, as all four of them sat up straighter in their seats—except for Cardin, who leaned back and smirked. "I have never seen a team as fractured as yours grow together the way the four of you have. In fact I was nearly certain the four of you would need to return next year for new team assignments."

A few of them shifted guiltily. Jaune rubbed the back of his neck and mustered a sheepish grin.

"And yet, you persevered. You proved yourselves capable of letting go of your pride, of listening to other perspectives, and of bridging great gaps. For that, I commend you." He smiled conspiratorially. "And, if I may speak to Miss Schnee and Miss Belladonna specifically—I dearly wish I could take credit for your partnership and the symbol of unity it now represents. In truth, it was a freak accident turned pleasant surprise."

He turned serious again, and repeated the same process as he had for BRYN, making eye contact with each of them in turn. "The four of you, in conjunction with Haven's Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias and under the leadership of Atlesian specialist Winter Schnee, diverted an attack made by two of the White Fang on the safe zone in Vale. Two, we have since ascertained, of the highest ranking members that took part in this attack. Without your intervention, they would have been free to wreak havoc on gathered civilians, and countless lives may have been lost."

He bowed again. His hair obscured most of his face, but Nora thought she could see him gritting his teeth.

Ozpin straightened. Any last remnants of pride or humor drained away. He looked older now than Nora had ever seen him, gripping his cane in a white-knuckled hand and turning slowly, inexorably, towards the third team in their little huddle.

"Team Raspberry." Everyone recognized the name, turning to peer at their group of three. There were twelve seats to a row, on the assumption that students would sit in teams. Sky's empty chair was set next to Dove, gleaming white in the afternoon sun.

Ozpin stopped for a moment, his eyes nearly closed, his jaw clenched. Then he looked up again, and tried to make the same sweep as he had for the other two teams. Ren turned his head away, and Ruby buried her face in Yang's shoulder. Pyrrha looked back at him, lips pressed together, her eyes narrowed.

Then, finally, he spoke. "I have asked more of you than should ever be asked of students. More than should be asked of fully grown Huntsmen and Huntresses. More, indeed, than I have any right to ask of heroes." The words hung in the air for a moment. Muttering started again as people leaned their heads together to whisper their confusion.

Ozpin let silence reign for a moment before he lowered his head. "For that," he said, "I am truly sorry." He dipped into another bow, lower than any of the others. When he tried to stand, his leg gave out and he would have fallen if Goodwitch hadn't jumped forward to steady him. She stayed next to him as he gripped the podium with one hand and his cane with the other.

"There is a mistake I see made often, when I hear people talk about tragedies like this one," Ozpin went on. The words were strained, spoken through gritted teeth. "They speak of students like Nelson Poloskun, Magnus Pierre, and May Zedong as though they were born with an innate quality that made them willing to give their lives protecting innocent people.

"No one is born a hero." Ozpin stood a little straighter, despite his shaking leg. "I will not credit their sacrifices to an inborn quality, a genetic quirk, or an accident of chance. They were courageous enough to make the ultimate sacrifice because they worked for it. They made everyday sacrifices for the betterment of others, they dedicated their lives to a dangerous profession in order to protect people, and they stayed the course even when it put them in mortal peril."

Nora tightened her arm around Ren, in anticipation of what she was sure would come next.

Ozpin took a deep breath, flexing the fingers of the hand that still gripped the podium. "As you all know, when students apply to this academy, one of the questions we ask is... why? Why do you want to be here, despite the danger?

"When I asked Sky Lark, he told me that he hoped Beacon Academy could help him learn to be brave."

Ren let out a sharp breath. Nora hugged him tighter and rubbed circles between his shoulderblades. People were staring, so she glared at them until they stopped.

"I firmly believe that, in Sky's case especially, to call him a born hero is nothing short of an insult. He did not come into his courage easily. Indeed, earlier this year he was disciplined for fleeing in the face of danger. It was not in his nature to face impossible odds without flinching.

"No. He was not born a hero. He had to struggle against himself, build up his courage a little at a time. He had setbacks, mistakes, stumbling blocks. And yet, he never gave up. He continued to struggle to uphold the mantle of the Huntsman he had chosen to become. He saved the lives of his teammates, and it is not an exaggeration to say that, if he had not done what he did during the attack, a great many of us would not be here now."

There was a stunned silence. The Headmaster had been purposely vague about whatever it was that had happened to RSPR. When BRYN had asked, they'd just shaken their heads and said that they weren't supposed to talk about it.

Ozpin let out a last, wobbly exhalation. "Sky Lark was not born a hero. But he certainly died as one. For his sacrifice, and for those of Nelson Poloskun..."

Nora looked down at Ren. He was staring at the statue, blinking hard but not quite crying. She wondered, not for the first time, whether or not it would help if she kissed him. And, yet again, she sighed and rested her forehead on his hair. It would be a gamble—if he liked her too, she was pretty sure it would make him feel a little better. But if he _didn't,_ she'd be taking advantage and being selfish and making everything _worse._

She stole a brief glance at Weiss and decided that maybe, just maybe, her team had had a point when they said she should've practiced what she preached while she still could. Someday, someday _soon_ so she didn't start procrastinating again, she'd tell him. But he came first—he always did. So Nora kept her mouth shut and rubbed his back, murmuring a quiet promise to make him some of that tea he liked later. She'd never been able to do that before because she always horribly overbrewed it, but now she was pretty sure she could press-gang Dove or Blake into helping. They seemed like tea people.

* * *

A hopefully-recovering anti-faunus bully, a White Fang deserter, and Weiss Schnee walked into a bar.

It didn't serve alcohol anymore, since a King Taijitu corpse had fallen on that side of the building. Now it was distributing food, water, and clothing after the crisis. The place _also_ happened to be in a faunus neighborhood. People looked up as they entered, and Blake made eye contact with a few of them. That meant she got to watch their expressions. They started with practiced wariness, wondering who these strangers were. Then came confusion. Horror. And finally, a sort of grudging amusement—'Here it is. Life has hit peak strangeness. We're done.'

"Hi," Blake said lamely. The man in charge, a broad-shouldered reptilian faunus with scales scattered across his neck and chin, blinked at her. Looked at Weiss. Then back at Blake.

Cardin made an irritated noise. "Yeah, we know." He held out the crate he was carrying. "Do you want this crap or not?"

"You're Alabaster," the man said. His voice was soft, a little raspy, like he was perpetually whispering. When Blake looked closer, she noticed that there was a scar on his throat almost concealed under the scales.

"Yes, sir." Weiss put the supplies she was carrying on the ground. "And you are...?"

Blake suppressed a sigh. The _plan_ was to do what they could to run damage control—the attack on the Festival was over, but with all the dissention that had been stirred up between Atlas and Vale, humans and faunus, there was still a decent chance that a riot would break out in the aftermath. Alabaster was perfect for that, for obvious reasons. The thing was... Blake trusted Weiss completely and Cardin... sort of... to have let go of the biases they held at the beginning of the year. Weiss was her best friend, and Cardin was... tolerable.

The problem was that both of them could be a bit _brusque,_ to make a rather incredible understatement, and Blake would be the first to admit that she wasn't much better. And their job was to wander around talking to people who hated faunus, people who hated Atlesians, and faunus who no longer felt safe in Vale. In other words, three groups of people that were very likely to lash out. Versus three notoriously short fuses. Jaune, the one who had been patient enough to weather _Cardin,_ was busy helping RSPR.

Still. She mustered a smile for the man and dropped her crate on top of Weiss' so that she could shake the offered hand. "Anolis," he said. His hand closed over her entire fist and part of her wrist. He very pointedly did not offer to shake with the other two.

"Is there anything we can help with?" Weiss asked, a bit stiffly. Cardin just crossed his arms and glared. _Great._

"Yeah." The man lifted his chin in challenge, his black eyes flashing. "I need servers, and if any of you people know how to cook..." He trailed off, his expression turning a bit smug. Weiss flushed.

"I can help serve," she said, doing her best to preserve dignity. Not, Blake suspected, because she thought that serving food was beneath her, but because the one time she'd tried to heat dinner in the cafeteria microwave she'd set off the fire alarm.

Cardin just grunted, which meant that he probably couldn't cook either. Blake sighed. _"Fine,_ I can help in the kitchen."

"Don't be so pissy," Cardin grumbled. "Do you _want_ to poison everyone in here?"

"My cooking isn't _poisonous,"_ Weiss hissed at him. He raised an eyebrow.

"I could pick a random mushroom out of the forest and tell you it was a truffle, and you'd have no idea."

"I'd know not to trust _you_ to give me ingredients!"

Blake threw up her hands and marched into the back of the bar, hoping that the two of them would at least _try_ to act like they didn't hate each other. Maybe she could have broken up the bickering, but she didn't trust herself not to get drawn in instead. Cardin had that effect on people.

Just because she was the best chef out of the three of them, didn't mean she was _great._ In the end Anolis followed her, and she ended up chopping vegetables while he did the actual cooking. He worked in silence for several minutes, then said, "I can't believe they made you work with the Schnee."

Blake twitched and accidentally scored a deep groove into the cutting board. "I couldn't either, until I actually got to know her. She's a good person."

He gave her a skeptical look, but didn't push.

Several tense minutes later Blake came out to what was left of the splintered bar and put down the tray of food. She was just in time to witness a small boy coming up to Weiss. He was trailing plain brown feathers she suspected would be a riot of color after puberty, as well as a shock of cobalt hair sticking up in every direction. There was a bandage around one ankle, and he had the scruffy look of someone who hadn't had the chance to shower and change clothes in a few days.

He rushed right up to Weiss and grabbed her right sleeve. She jumped and snatched it back, but once she got a look at the boy she relaxed and smiled. "Hello there."

"I'm Pavo." The kid produced a crumpled candy wrapper from his pocket and held it out to her. "Do you know Brine and Raspberry?"

Intrigued, Blake abandoned the food and wandered over. Weiss was examining the wrapper, turning it this way and that as if she was checking for a watermark. When she handed it over, Blake realized it was actually a matter of reading the ink that had been smudged into borderline illegibility.

_IOU ... h—ry Hun—n badg—_

The signature was even worse, but Blake could make out the initials—YXL—and that gave her pretty strong idea of who had written it.

"A badge, huh?" she said.

The little boy nodded. "I'm an honorary Huntsman now!"

Blake hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I'm sure my partner here can fix something up for you." She'd expected Weiss to make a face at her, since she'd just lobbed all responsibility for the sudden arts and crafts project squarely in her lap, but she only smiled at the little kid.

"I'll need some time—I don't think we have any badges in stock at the moment."

Then she shot Blake a side-long smirk. "Of course, I'll need help gathering materials..."

_Damn it._

"Of course." She plastered on a smile. _I should have known that was too easy._

They got permission from Anolis—who gave Weiss a bemused look when she explained the situation—and told Cardin to stay put, serve food, and behave. He scowled and said he wasn't a fucking dog, but that wasn't a _no,_ so hopefully it would be fine. Blake resolved to make the trip as quick as possible just in case.

So that was how the two of them ended up alone together in the back of an office supply store, helping themselves to a safety pin, a magic marker, a rectangle of cardboard, and about twenty square inches of tinfoil. Weiss left a note listing the items taken and a lot more lien than they were worth, which hopefully wouldn't be stolen before the actual owner got back. _If_ they got back.

Blake sat on a counter, watching Weiss cut out a cardboard badge roughly the same shape as Jaune's shield. "Congratulations," she said, after a while.

"Hmm?"

"You talked to a child and he didn't run away."

Weiss threw some of the cardboard scrap at her head, but she completely failed to hide a smile. She squinted at the badge in front of her, rubbed her good eye, then huffed and pulled off the eye patch. The dead eye opened, but Blake's stomach didn't drop. There was only a distant, dull throb of guilt.

Then Weiss started to fidget, and the silence grew tense. She positioned and adjusted the tinfoil, smoothing out all the wrinkles. "What's wrong?" Blake asked, when watching it grew unbearable.

Weiss winced. "Um. I probably shouldn't..."

"If I don't want to talk about it, I'll say so."

Her hands stilled, with one holding the badge by its edges and the other limp across its surface. "We never really discussed what happened with... him."

"Oh."

"And I do think that objectively he was a terrible person, but... so are certain _other_ people, and I'd understand if your reaction is a bit more complicated than that."

Blake thought that over for a moment, kicking absently at the counter. "I don't know... it's all such a jumbled mess that I haven't managed to feel upset _or_ relieved, yet."

Weiss nodded, then returned her attention to the badge. She took some tape for the back, added that to her list, and left another ten lien. "I just wanted to say that I'm... around. If you want to talk to someone." She looked intensely uncomfortable, though whether that was because of the subject matter or just general awkwardness around conversations like this, Blake couldn't tell.

"Thank you."

She wasn't sure she'd take her up on the offer any time soon. At the very least, in order to talk about how she felt she'd have to figure that out. It was hard to reconcile the picture in her head of Adam's expression right after she'd kissed him for the first time, wide-eyed and gaping like a fish, with the masked monster that finally managed to make a serious attempt to _kill_ her—and harder still to connect those two versions of him to the empty shell, lying facedown in a bloody puddle.

"Are _you_ okay?" she asked, surprising even herself. "I know it had to happen, he wouldn't have stopped until he'd killed us, but... it _was_ your sister who shot him."

Weiss went still, her hand poised over the magic marker. "Oh. Um."

"Sorry, I didn't—"

"No! No, it's fine." She sighed, then uncapped the marker. "I knew she'd... that's part of being a military specialist, obviously. It's just different seeing it."

Blake sighed. "Right. Let's talk about... something else."

"Yes, let's."

Silence, except for the squeaking of the marker.

"So... is this what you expected to be doing when you woke up this morning?"

Weiss giggled. "No, I can't say that it is."

They settled into a more comfortable rhythm, then. Blake watched over Weiss' shoulder as she finished writing _Honorary Huntsman_ in big bold letters across the top. That left space near the middle, in which she drew a circle.

"What's that for?"

"I thought perhaps a symbol?" Weiss said. "Though I don't know what, exactly."

"Here." Blake took both marker and badge and did her best to draw Yang's burning heart in the empty space. It came out a little bit smudged, but she thought it was at least a passable imitation considering she hadn't seen it that often.

Weiss hummed appreciatively and capped the marker, then returned all the borrowed supplies to their proper places. She held the makeshift badge up, tilting it back and forth so that it caught the light. "What do you think?"

"It's beautiful," Blake said, resting her chin on her hand. Weiss turned and raised an eyebrow.

"You've been reading _far_ too many of those books." This time it was Blake's turn to throw bits of cardboard and pretend not to smile.

Another silence descended, almost as tense as the first. Weiss kept turning the badge over and over in her hands. Blake got down from the counter and then paused. "What is it?"

Weiss twitched. "I was trying to think of a better way to ask, but... can I kiss you?"

Blake stared at her for a second, then muffled a laugh. "I don't think you've been reading _enough_ of those books."

Weiss grumbled something highly insulting about an entire genre of literature that Blake ignored for the sake of not starting an argument _now_ of all times.

"But the answer is yes."

They both leaned in. Blake only barely managed to adjust in time when Weiss tilted her head _left_ instead of right. She was momentarily struck by how strange it felt to be the _taller_ one. Then, contact.

The comparison was reflexive, and entirely favorable. It felt like a knot in her stomach had been loosened. No sparks, no fireworks—just warmth, gentle pressure, and a deep sense of peace.

Weiss leaned away, looking a little bit stunned. Both eyes were wide, and for once Blake looked at the dead one without feeling even the slightest stab. She could see her own expression reflected in it—she was grinning widely, which would have been a little embarrassing if she hadn't been looking at, well... someone who was staring at her and gaping like a fish.

 _Another comparison._ It didn't bother her as much as she would have expected. She wasn't sure she'd ever muster up the same blind faith she had in Adam, or believe that another relationship could be a flawless, fairytale, ride-off-into-the-sunset sort of affair, but she knew this one was strong—not because they were perfect but because they had _despised_ one another. Considering how stubborn they both were, arguments were inevitable, but she had proof positive that they could go from enemies to friends. That felt more solid than a perfect fit ever could.

They soon returned to the bar, ostensibly to make sure Cardin hadn't caused an international incident but actually because Weiss seemed slightly overwhelmed and in need of time to think. Blake chose to interpret that as a good sign, mostly because when she'd gone in for a hug it had been reciprocated immediately, without the initial stiffness she was used to.

When they walked back in, they found Cardin spooning soup into the bowl of an old woman with a shawl, while a six-year-old monkey faunus with an auburn tail rode on his shoulders and tugged his hair. He ignored her completely, and she treated him like she'd just watched him crush a Beringel's skull with his bare hands. Jaune was leaning against the counter with his scroll out, recording the entire thing. Cardin was ignoring him, too, much more pointedly.

"You're here," Blake said. Jaune looked up and grinned.

"Yeah. For some reason I felt the need to make sure none of you had killed each other."

"Hey!" Weiss glared at him. "If anyone was going to die, it'd be Cardin."

He didn't make any rude gestures at her, but Blake was pretty sure that was only because of the child he was wearing as a hat.

"Where's Pavo?" Weiss asked. She didn't hold up the badge, which Blake thought was wise—there weren't any other kids that she could see, besides the one sitting on Cardin's shoulders, but she couldn't shake the worry that they would be swarmed if it was brought out into the open.

Pavo rushed up to Weiss eagerly, then paused and stared. Blake realized they'd both completely forgotten about the eye patch—it was still in the store. She winced, bracing for trouble, but he just grinned toothily and proclaimed, "Cool!" Weiss slipped him the badge, and he ruined any and all possible attempts at secrecy by squealing with delight and showing it off to his father, the barman, and anyone else he could find. When he left, it was still pinned proudly to his chest.

"Take a break," Anolis told them afterwards, gesturing at a table in one corner. He even let them have some of the food, which made Blake realize just how hungry she was.

Cardin rolled his neck, making exaggerated pained noises and complaining that it was going to be stiff for hours. Weiss suggested wearing a brace next time, and he said that he'd rather fight a Deathstalker one-on-one than interact with another damn rugrat.

Weiss stared him down for a few seconds, then smirked. "Liar."

"Hey, _you're_ probably small enough, if you want a ride—"

"Why on _earth_ would I want to do that?"

"To be taller than me."

There was a moment's pause. Blake couldn't help it—she snickered, because Weiss had gone red from anger and embarrassment and Cardin was leaning away from her with a look of dawning apprehension. Then he chuckled nervously, and Weiss had to turn her head to hide a smirk. Jaune leaned back, watching the interaction with a strange expression on his face.

"Hey," he said quietly. "Uh... I had this idea..."

"I'm not riding Cardin into battle like a warhorse. That's what Deathstalkers are for."

"...Good to know." He cleared his throat, then grinned sheepishly. "I was wondering, uh... I know things are kind of crazy with, um... Okay, I'm not saying this super well but I wanted to invite everyone to maybe stay with me for a while over the break?" He scratched his head. "Because, uh... to be honest, my parents didn't believe me when I told them we're an actual team now." Cardin snorted, then let his head drop to the table and laughed into the wood.

"Well." Weiss raised both eyebrows. "I'd offer to do the same, but I don't hate any of you _that_ much."

"I can't host either," Cardin said. "My folks'd probably flip meeting any of you."

"Any of us?" Jaune blinked. "Wait."

"My dad hates faunus," Cardin ticked off a finger, "Schnees," another finger, "And noodles."

"Noodles? What does that have to do with—hey!"

"I could introduce you to my parents," Blake blurted out, before she lost the nerve. All conversation stopped dead. Three pairs of eyes trained on her at once. "What?"

"You have parents?" Cardin said. Jaune whipped his head around and kicked his partner in the shin.

"Yeah." Blake looked down at the table. "We didn't part on the best of terms, but... I think it would be good to talk to them again. In the worst case we could find a ship back right afterwards."

"A ship?" Weiss asked.

"They live on Menagerie."

Jaune agreed enthusiastically and started scribbling down logistics on a napkin—like when they'd go from his hometown to Menagerie, and where they'd stay on the way, and where they'd get the money for all this. Cardin looked leery of the idea, but after mulling it over for a moment he shrugged and nodded.

"Is that..." Weiss trailed off, rethinking her choice of words. "That is to say, would it be alright for me to be there? I wouldn't want to cause an incident."

Blake thought about it for a moment. "I think it'll be alright. Some people will be... _stiff,_ and even those that aren't will need time to warm up to you, but... I think it'd be good for you know what it's like there. To talk to them."

Weiss nodded slowly. "I'd like that," she decided.

"Great!" Jaune clapped his hands together. "Let's do it!"

Cardin smirked. "You sure about that, Jaune?"

"...Yes?"

"Uh- _huh."_

Jaune looked around, alarmed. "Wait, what? Did I miss something?"

"Yep." Cardin leaned back in his seat, glancing between Blake and Jaune with a growing smirk. "Both of you have made a horrible mistake."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. _"Well?"_

"Baby pictures."

Jaune blanched. Blake tried to imagine what would happen if Cardin asked her mother for embarrassing photographs—she was pretty sure there was at least one of her stuck in a tree that she hadn't managed to burn yet. She weighed her options, then stood up and looked him dead in the eye.

"Ask," she said, "and the rest of us are going to have to spend the break disposing of a body."

* * *

Forever Fall wasn't so special this time of year, but that didn't make it any less beautiful. Scarlet leaves drifted on the wind, swirling gently around them, and it was all Ruby could do to keep walking and not just stop and stare.

Unlike BRYN, they'd actually gotten permission to leave Beacon. Goodwitch had suggested that they take the trip, because Pyrrha needed to practice with the Maiden powers and they couldn't risk anyone seeing. So here they were, in the middle of nowhere. Just the three of them.

Ruby kicked at some of the fallen leaves. Suddenly the forest around them lost its appeal—she wished she were back in the dorm, with Yang trying to hug her to death and Jaune making awkward small talk and Nora steering them to safer topics. But they needed to do this—or more specifically, Pyrrha needed to do this so she wouldn't just explode.

They were leaving a trail, now—the leaves kept icing over as Pyrrha stepped on them. She'd tried to turn it off when they first started walking, but now she wasn't bothering. It wasn't much, just a light dusting of frost, the sort of thing everyone would soon be finding on the ground every morning as winter approached.

Finally, Ruby decided that they were far enough away to stop. If anyone was still around, it was because they were being followed and no one would do that unless they _already_ knew. Or something. She was going to have to get used to the fact that people might be hunting them. Not something to look forward to.

"Okay," she said quietly. "I guess we start the lesson?"

Pyrrha nodded. "Professor Goodwitch will be able to help me starting a few days from now, but with all the repairs..."

"Yeah." Ruby looked around. "So, um... what do we do?"

"I'm supposed to use one element at a time. Like maintaining a ball of flame or a gust of wind, or making sparks without letting the electricity arc." She sat down cross-legged on the carpet of leaves, and the other two each plopped down next to her. None of them looked at the empty space on Ren's other side. There was a mid-sized rock jutting up from the ground, and farther on a cliff overlooking an empty railroad track. A single tree stood in the center of the clearing, its leaves drifting gently to the ground.

Ruby tried to focus on the little puff of fire Pyrrha held between her hands, but her thoughts kept wandering. It was hard to think of anything except the _absence,_ the places where Sky should have been and suddenly wasn't—and when she wasn't thinking about _that,_ she was thinking about how much all of this reminded her of mom.

"Are you alright?" Ren nudged her elbow. She drew it away and nodded. The flame flared up, then guttered until it was almost extinguished.

"How long are you supposed to do this for?" Ruby asked.

"As long as I can," Pyrrha replied, sounding... clipped. Terse.

"Oh. Sorry."

Pyrrha twitched, and the flame flared up again. She still didn't say anything. Ruby fidgeted with her cloak and blinked back tears. She didn't want to cry. After the last few days, she was sick of it—it just left her feeling hollowed out and too sleepy to _do_ anything.

"Does it... um. Does it feel better, now? The power, I mean. Now that... um..." Ruby stopped. That wasn't something she should have brought up. Pyrrha tensed, and the fire spread all the way up to her elbows.

"Yes," she said shortly. "It wasn't stable split up that way. Now... I feel whole again." That should have been a good thing, but the way she spoke it didn't sound like it.

"Okay." Ruby swallowed nervously. "So, is... is it stronger, do you think, or—"

Pyrrha flinched, and suddenly flames roared out, charring the leaves they were sitting on. Ruby and Ren both jerked away, though their auras protected them from the worst of it. "I'm sorry," Pyrrha mumbled. "I just... I can't _do_ it, every time I try it just—" Another gout of fire, this time washing over the ground in front of her. She snarled in frustration and slashed her hand through the air. This time fire snapped out, whip-like, catching the lone tree and lighting it up like a matchstick. It only lasted a moment before it cracked, trembled, and fell.

Ruby exchanged a wide-eyed look with Ren, then turned to Pyrrha. She was staring at the fallen tree, mouth slightly open, eyes tearing up.

"This is all it's good for," she murmured. "Destroying things."

"I don't think that's true." Ren crouched down and snapped off a branch that had escaped some but not all of the flames. He whipped it through the air to put out any lingering fire, then approached the rock and scraped the stick across its face, leaving bold black lines.

The silhouette he sketched out wasn't complicated—the shape of a person in profile, holding a halberd over his head. Ruby swallowed, then wiped furiously at her eyes. Pyrrha half-sat, half-collapsed beside Ren, who was kneeling in front of his drawing. Ruby joined them, mostly because she didn't think she _could_ stay standing even if she wanted to.

She reached out, running a finger along the stick. It came away smudged black, and on a crazy whim no doubt influenced by all the time she'd been spending with Nora over the past couple days, she turned and poked Ren in the nose. He reared his head back, staring at her in bewilderment. Paused. Then sneezed.

Ruby burst into giggles, and halfway through she honestly had no idea if the little huffs of breath she was making were laughter or sobs. She wiped at her face, then realized a second later that she'd used the wrong hand and there was probably ash on her cheek.

"Oops," she said, and that set off Pyrrha. Even Ren cracked a smile.

"We've done this before," Ruby said, when the last giggles had died away. "Not talking about stuff that's bothering us."

Ren's little smile faded, and she wished she'd just kept her dumb mouth shut because that would only make it _worse,_ and—

"You're right." He turned to face the rock, brushing his fingers across its surface and smudging a few of the lines.

"I wasn't looking for a new friend when I arrived here," he told the image, "but I found three. I'm glad I had the chance to know you, even if only briefly." He touched the stone again, and Ruby got the sense that he was trying to spread his semblance over it. She couldn't tell if it had worked or not. Maybe if Sky was somewhere else now, he'd notice. Maybe it was just for Ren.

Pyrrha paused, then approached their makeshift memorial and traced the outline Ren had drawn. Where her finger passed over the rough surface, she left a little groove as the heat of her hand melted the stone. It made the air around her uncomfortably warm, but once she was done it cooled down again almost instantly.

"Thank you," she murmured. "For laughing at me when I asked you to." Ruby didn't get what that was supposed to mean, but she decided not to ask—now didn't feel like the right time.

She had to think for a second, but she eventually figured out what she could do. "We didn't bring flowers," she told the stone, "but I've got these." She scattered some of the petals her semblance left behind. They vanished among the red leaves, barely distinguishable except for the fact that they were smaller, rounder, and softer. She hoped that it was the thought that counted.

"You were the first teammate I really got," Ruby told Sky. "Mostly since we were both super awkward and had no idea what we were doing. And I think that helped me make friends with Pyrrha and Ren and everyone else. I probably would have failed all my theory if it weren't for you, and... and I had a lot of fun sparring with you. You were getting really good!"

She paused, struggling for words. Then, finally, "We miss you." That wasn't what she'd been trying to say, but she thought that maybe it was the kind of thing she wouldn't be able to put into words until later. She could always come back, maybe after the break. The statue in the courtyard wasn't Sky's alone, but this was—and it wasn't going anywhere.

There was another moment of silence. Ruby felt like they were all trying to think of the perfect phrase to cap off the impromptu memorial service. None of them could articulate it, though, so they just turned around and walked back towards Beacon. She liked to think Sky would know what they were trying to say anyway.

"We should bring an acorn next time," Ruby said, on an impulse that hadn't quite fully formed yet. Ren and Pyrrha both looked at her in mild surprise.

"Yeah." She nodded, warming to the idea. "We can plant it where that old tree was. Or maybe behind the rock, so that as it gets bigger it does that thing old trees do where it grows over it, like a living picture frame. Something like that."

"It'd be covered over completely, one day," Ren pointed out.

"That's okay. We'd know it was there, and... it doesn't need to be around for everyone to see. It's our spot."

Pyrrha smiled. "Let's do that—but we'll take it from the Emerald Forest. That way we'll always be able to find it."

Ruby nodded eagerly. "Then like fifty years from now, someone'll see it from one of those trains. And they'll wonder how the heck a bunch of green got into Forever Fall."

Ren stared up into the canopy, the dappled light falling on his face. There was still a dark smudge on the tip of his nose. "And in a hundred years, that stone won't have weathered away. It'll be safe inside the tree." He turned his head to look at them. "It's not permanent, but it will last."

Thus decided, the three of them started the long walk back to Beacon.


End file.
